Mission Intention of the Holy Father for the Month of January 2011

(January 06, 2010) Unity of Christians: That Christians may attain full unity, witnessing to all the universal fatherhood of God.
This month Pope Benedict XVI is asking us to join him in praying for harmony in the Christian family. Jesus taught us the prayer that all Christians have in common namely, the Our Father. We begin that beautiful prayer by calling upon our Father, and we end it by forgiving one another as our Father has forgiven each of us. The lack of Christian unity contradicts our witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John tells us that Jesus himself prayed that we would all be one so the world will know that we have a common Father. In his homily on Holy Thursday 2010, Pope Benedict pointed out that the Lord says twice that this unity should make the world believe in the mission of Jesus, a unity which so transcends ordinary human possibilities as to become a sign. Again, Pope Benedict XVI tells us that the commitment to unity among Christians is not the work of a few only, nor is it an incidental undertaking for the life of the Church. Each one of us is called to make his or her contribution towards the completion of those steps that lead to full communion among the Disciples of Christ, without ever forgetting that this unity is above all a gift from God to be constantly invoked. In fact, the force that supports both unity and the mission flows from the fruitful encounter with the Risen Lord. The theme for this year’s Christian Unity Octave is: One in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer.