Today we’re experiencing an “educational catastrophe.” This is no exaggeration. Due to wars, migration, and poverty, some 250 million boys and girls lack education.
All children and youth have the right to go to school, regardless of their immigration status.
Education is a hope for everyone – it can save migrants and refugees from discrimination, criminal networks, and exploitation…. So many minors are exploited! It can help them integrate into the communities who host them.
Education opens the doors to a better future. In this way, migrants and refugees can contribute to society, either in their new country or in their country of origin, should they decide to return.
And let’s never forget that whoever welcomes the foreigner, welcomes Jesus Christ.
Let us pray for migrants, refugees and those affected by war, that their right to an education, which is necessary to build a more human world, might always be respected.
January 2025
When I was 17 years old, I was a student and was working. I had my own plans. I wasn’t thinking at all of being a priest. But one day, I went into the church…and God was there, waiting for me!
God still calls young people even today, sometimes in ways we can’t imagine. Sometimes we don’t hear because we’re too busy with our own things, our own plans, even with our own things in the Church.
But the Holy Spirit also speaks to us through dreams, and speaks to us through the concerns young people feel in their hearts. If we accompany their journeys, we’ll see how God is doing new things with them. And we’ll be able to welcome His call in ways that better serve the Church and the world today.
Let’s trust young people! And, above all, let’s trust God for He calls everyone!
Let us pray that the ecclesial community might welcome the desires and doubts of those young people who feel called to live Jesus’s mission in life: either through the priestly life, or religious life.
February 2025
We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But there’s no such thing as a perfect family. Every family has its own problems, as well as its tremendous joys.
Every member of the family is important because each member is different than the others, each person is unique. But these differences can also cause conflict and painful wounds.
And the best medicine to heal the pain of a wounded family is forgiveness.
Forgiveness means giving another chance. God does this with us all the time. God’s patience is infinite. He forgives us, lifts us up, gives us a new start. Forgiveness always renews the family, making it look forward with hope.
Even when there’s no possibility of the “happy ending” we’d like, God’s grace gives us the strength to forgive, and it brings peace, because it frees us from sadness, and, above all, from resentment.
Let us pray that broken families might discover the cure for their wounds through forgiveness, rediscovering each other’s gifts, even in their differences.
March 2025