“I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me”
( Honoring Pope Francis and the Call to Love the Immigrant )
Pope Francis’ stood for compassion, justice and peace. He brought focus to how church should be accessible to everybody and inclusive to everybody. The choice of the name Francis, a strong reminder of the need for outreach with those on the margins of society and the fulfillment of the commandment to “Love your neighbour as yourself“.
On Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, the world received what became Pope Francis’s final public sermon. A blessing filled with the deep compassion that defined his papacy. In his frailty, he offered words that were anything but weak. They called us back to the heart of the Gospel.
“We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere… He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.”
He named the pain of global conflict—Gaza, Ukraine, the Sahel—and, with particular emphasis, lifted up the plight of migrants and refugees, urging the world to remember their dignity and humanity. For Pope Francis, welcoming the stranger was a spiritual practice, a political position and it was seeing Christ.
As members of the United Church of Canada, we are no strangers to this call. Our commitments to right relations, global partnerships, and radical hospitality have always pointed us toward the vulnerable at our borders and in our communities. We believe, as Francis did, that love without walls is a true love.
His final sermon was, in many ways, a benediction on the work of inclusion and justice. Not a command, but an invitation: to keep our eyes open for the risen Christ in the migrant child, the borderless neighbour, the seeker who longs for home.
For Reflection: Scripture That Guides Us in Loving the Immigrant
• Deuteronomy 10:18–19 “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners…”
Pope Francis has done what was his to do. He leaves behind changes and the global community stirred by his compassion.
May we, like him, find the face of Christ in those who journey across deserts and oceans in hope. May we be communities that open not just our doors, but our hearts.
And when the road is hard, may we remember:
“I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
DD / 2025 04