Pastoral Message

“Concern for our Filipino

Migrant or Overseas Workers

August 08, 1982

The theme chosen for this year’s Migration Sunday in the Philippines is concern for our migrant or overseas workers. The priest is asked to preach about this in his homily. The following can serve as the homily, or can be amplified or substituted.

There is no question about it, among the largest dollar earning exports of the Philippines is manpower. According to reliable sources, the total number of Filipinos migrating or working in foreign lands, such as the United States, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Papua New Guinea, is close to two million.

It can be truly said, therefore, that four percent of Filipinos are migrant workers — pressured, perhaps by economic needs, but charged, nevertheless, with being practical providers and breadwinners of their families.

Vatican II’s “Gaudium et Spes” has this to say about man’s labor: “For man, created to God’s image, received a mandate to subject to himself the earth and all that it contains, and to govern the world with justice and holiness; a mandate to relate himself and the totality of things to Him who is to be acknowledged as the Lord and Creator of all.”

The same document further states: “It is ordinarily by his labor that a man supports himself and his family, is joined to his fellowmen and serves them, and is enabled to exercise genuine charity and be a partner in the work of bringing God’s creation to perfection. Indeed, we hold that by offering his labor to God a man becomes associated with the redemptive work itself of Jesus Christ, who conferred an eminent dignity on labor when at Nazareth he worked with His own hands.

Work, done in the right spirit and in the right conditions, is a gift from God and ennobles the worker. Alas, this is often not true with many of our countrymen working abroad. Many are living almost unbearable lives: away from their families and loved ones, without recreation and entertainment. Some are even exploited. Many encounter serious obstacles in the practice of their faith. Others, though enjoying an abundance of material goods, are dislocated in their new environment and lose their Christian values in the process.

Our overseas workers need our attention, care, and concern. One thing we can surely do is to pray for them and their families. We can also support with our time, treasure or talent any endeavor or project that aims to help them.

Let us see and love in our migrant workers our Lord Jesus, who has been a migrant when he fled as a baby from Herod to Egypt, and a laborer, when he earned his living as a carpenter in Nazareth.

(Sgd.) + Jaime L. Cardinal Sin, D.D.

Archbishop of Manila