Photo:  Instagram/Franciscus   National Catholic Register

“The Holy Father greeted the flock of the world on New Years day with an allusion to the greeting which the angels proclaimed to the shepherds on that first Christmas night.  “Peace to all people and to all nations on earth!”  He went on to wish that all peoples recall it as a profound aspiration … especially those who most keenly suffer its’ absence.”NCR

The original words of the angels,   “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of good will” were missing.  But, as His Holiness had said previously “Jesus didn’t use a tape recorder.” But then again, He actually WAS God … who inspired the writing of the holy prophets in the scriptures.

Also amiss was any reference to Mary on this day on which  we celebrate ‘The Solemnity of Mary’.

The Pope addressed the plight of migrants and refugees.  He recalled the words of Pope Benedict XVI:  “men and women, children, young and elderly people, who are searching for somewhere to live in peace.”NCR

Never before in earth’s history has the world been so chaotic as to force its’ entire population to leave their beautiful home lands.  They stream over her face in floods as they leave their beautiful homelands carrying their few possessions on their backs.  Children with sunken eyes who flail thin little arms and legs restlessly about.  Babies crying with hunger.  There are older ones too.  Their back are bent and aching under the burden of carrying a child or a few meager belongings.  Maybe some bread or apples in a bag. They must go through storms and hot desert lands.  Sometimes the earth heaves in a great quake in harmony with the sorrow of its’ Creator.

Why?  Is there not enough room on the earth?  There are those who claim so!

The Pope offers “Four milestones for Action.  Welcoming! Protecting! Promoting! Integrating!  These will be accomplished in the future by the U.N. if we become imbued with the “welcoming spirit” which will  guide the process that in the course of 2018 will lead the UN to draft and approve two Global Compacts.

One is for safe, orderly and regular migration.  The other is for refugees.

http://www.refugeesmigrants.un.org/refugees-compact

As shared agreements at a global level, these compacts will provide a framework for policy proposals and practical measures.”

So there really is no end to it … and it seems as though all the plans are in pace for us all  between the Pope and the political kings of the world.

Drawn from The National Catholic Register  Migrants and Refugees Are Men and Women in Search of Peace: Papal message for the 51st Day of Peace and the First Day of 2018