{"id":141830,"date":"2017-12-26T02:18:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T07:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=141830"},"modified":"2017-12-26T02:18:31","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T07:18:31","slug":"pope-on-christmas-bethlehem-treks-like-todays-migrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/26\/pope-on-christmas-bethlehem-treks-like-todays-migrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope on Christmas: Bethlehem trek’s like today’s migrations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pope<\/a>
Pope Francis in Christmas Eve remarks Sunday likened the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to the migrations of millions of people today who are forced to leave homelands for a better life, or just for survival, and he expressed hope that no one will feel \u201cthere is no room for them on this Earth.\u201d (Photo<\/a> by Republic of Korea\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VATICAN CITY \u2014 Pope Francis in Christmas Eve remarks Sunday likened the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to the migrations of millions of people today who are forced to leave homelands for a better life, or just for survival, and he expressed hope that no one will feel \u201cthere is no room for them on this Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francis celebrated late evening Christmas vigil Mass in the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica, telling the faithful that the \u201csimple story\u201d of Jesus’ birth in a manger changed \u201cour history forever. Everything that night became a source of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting that Mary and Joseph arrived in a land \u201cwhere there was no place for them,\u201d Francis drew parallels to contemporary time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary,\u201d he said in his homily. \u201cWe see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away but, driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many cases this departure is filled with hope, hope for the future; yet for many this departure can only have one name: survival,\u201d the pope said.<\/p>\n

Referring to the king of Judea who was depicted as a tyrant in the New Testament, Francis continued, saying some\u00a0migrants\u00a0are \u201csurviving the Herods of today, who, to impose their power and increase their wealth, see no problem in shedding innocent blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francis has made concern for economic\u00a0migrants, war refugees and others on society’s margins a central plank of his papacy. He said God is present in \u201cthe unwelcomed visitor, often unrecognizable, who walks through our cities and our neighbourhoods, who travels on our buses and knocks on our door.\u201d That perception of God should develop into \u201cnew forms of relationship, in which none have to feel that there is no room for them on this Earth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristmas is a time for turning the power of fear into the power of charity,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n

Referring to Jesus as the Child of Bethlehem, the pope said that God \u201cinvites us to become sentinels for all those bowed down by the despair born of encountering so many closed doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pope expressed hope that people see Jesus in \u201call those who arrive in our cities, in our histories, in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the start of the service, Francis bent over to kiss a statue of the baby Jesus in the basilica.<\/p>\n

At mid-day Monday, tradition calls for Francis to deliver the Christmas Day message \u201curbi et orbi\u201d – Latin for \u201cto the city and to the world\u201d – from the central loggia of the basilica overlooking St. Peter’s Square. The speech often is a review of the world events and conflicts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VATICAN CITY \u2014 Pope Francis in Christmas Eve remarks Sunday likened the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":141835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[40449,8790,40448,2300],"class_list":["post-141830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-immigration","tag-bethlehem","tag-christmas","tag-migrations","tag-pope-francis","mauthors-frances-demilio","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}