Pope Francis sent a brief video message to a group that was founded to promote unity, called the John 17 Movement, since John Chapter 17 contains the prayer of Christ, “That they all may be one.”
The founder of the movement is a friend of a friend of the pope’s, and thus the Holy Father has taken a special interest in the group. Furthermore, of course, the work for unity is very aligned with the pope’s own goals in his pontificate, as seen especially in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
The group was meeting in New York for a two-day at St. Joseph’s Seminary and College in Yonkers, New York.
In the message, the pope urged an encounter with Jesus, an encounter with love, from which is born “friendship, brotherhood and the certainty of being children of the same Father.”
The John 17 Movement is about those who, around the table, drinking a cappuccino, dining or eating a gelato, discover they are brothers, not on account of their colour, nor their nationality, nor their place of origin, nor the different forms in which they live out their faith, but as children of the one same Father.
And even if there is no table, even if there is no cappuccino, even if there is no ice cream, even if there is no coffee, because there is poverty and there is war, we are still brothers, and we must say this to each other. Without thinking of our place of origin, or of our nationality, or of the colour of our skin: We are children of the one same Father.
At the end of the message, the Pope made his customary request that we pray for him, but he added, “because this work is not easy at all!”
And today we celebrate...