Pope to ecumenical movement: We can give life to a new world of peace
By Kielce Gussie
Ahead of the ecumenical prayer event, “Thy Kingdom Come”, Pope Leo XIV sent a video message to all the participants, assuring them of his spiritual closeness.
The event, which takes place from May 14-24, is a prayer movement that invites Christians around the world to pray together from Ascension Thursday to Pentecost Sunday for more people to know Jesus.
“Thy Kingdom Come” (TKC) started in 2016 and has grown to involve more than a million Christians in almost 90% of nations around the globe, spanning 85 different denominations and traditions.
Come, Emmanuel
In his video message, the Pope reflects on the traditional phrase for the Advent season: “Come, Emmanuel.” With this, Christians call for the completion of Isaiah’s prophecy—the birth of Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
Throughout that season of waiting, Pope Leo highlights how our songs and carols grow ever more urgent for God to come down among us, to save us from sin and all that can hurt us. He notes that we are calling for God to heal what is broken in both us individually and in the world.
“Even though we know that God is almighty and transcendent, we are still bold enough to ask him to be truly with us – not distant, but close,” the Holy Father stresses.
Yet, sometimes, he points out, we forget that we need God and how only He can “satisfy our deepest longings and our inner restlessness.” In the person of Jesus Christ, God has come down to be close to us in the flesh. Now, “through His Holy Spirit He is with us.”
We are not left orphans
During these 50 days of Easter, “Alleluia” becomes the song of the season and a way to offer praise and thanksgiving for Jesus’ resurrection. “He is still God-with-us”, Pope Leo highlights, while pointing out that even His closest friends did not always recognize Him after His resurrection.
Though Jesus returned to the Father in Heaven, “He did not leave us orphans.” Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, He remains present to us all in the Church. Christ, the Holy Father continues, “is everything for us. In Him, we find the fullness of life and its meaning.” This gift, he stresses, is not something we can keep to ourselves. Rather, “it is something to proclaim boldly.”
The “Thy Kingdom Come Novena” offers a perfect opportunity to share the Good News and pray “that others will also come to encounter the saving and liberating love of God revealed in Jesus.”
Going out to the whole world
Pope Leo concludes his video message recounting his Easter Vigil homily this year: “The encounter to which we want to bear witness – through the words of faith and the works of charity – we do so by “singing” with our lives the “Alleluia” that we proclaim with our lips (cf. Saint Augustine, Sermon 256, 1).
Like the women in the Gospel on Easter Sunday, the Holy Father notes that we should have the desire to be “set out” to bring the Gospel to people around the world. “We too can give life to a new world of peace and unity as a ‘multitude of people and yet […] a single person, for although there are many Christians, Christ is one’” (Saint Augustine, Commentaries on the Psalms, 127:3).
Before ending, the Pope invokes God’s abundant blessings on everyone.
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