Letter from Bishop Checchio on the International Day of Human Fraternity

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As you may know, the Holy Father is participating in a virtual meeting today with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, with the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, and other leaders, marking the first-ever International Day of Human Fraternity. The meeting can be viewed by visiting the Vatican News website.
 
In a time in which we are sadly afflicted by division, this meeting offers us a reminder that – regardless of our economic, political, and societal status or our race, ethnicity, or religious beliefs – we are all bound together as children of God, equally made in His image and likeness. 
 
By this International Day of Human Fraternity, which comes two years to the day after Pope Francis made an apostolic journey to the United Arab Emirates and signed a document on human fraternity for world peace and living together, we are encouraged to accept of our own humanity as a gift from the Father and express our concern for all individuals and the common good.
 
In his most recent encyclical letter, “Fratelli Tutti,” on fraternity and social friendship, published on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and signed the day before, October 3, 2020, Pope Francis writes: “For Christians, the words of Jesus have an even deeper meaning. They compel us to recognize Christ himself in each of our abandoned or excluded brothers and sisters (cf. Mt 25:40.45). Faith has untold power to inspire and sustain our respect for others, for believers come to know that God loves every man and woman with infinite love and ‘thereby confers infinite dignity’ upon all humanity.”
 
As I reflect on this day and on the Holy Father’s encyclical, I am reminded of the many blessings for which we have to be grateful for here in this local Church of Metuchen, for the richness of our faith and marked by a great diversity of ethnicities, cultures, languages and religions. 
 
As Pope Francis notes in his encyclical, St. Francis of Assisi, the secondary patron of our diocese and the patron of our cathedral, said, “Blessed is the servant who loves and respects his brother as much when he is far away from him as when he is with him.” 
 
That is my prayer for each of us today, that we may continue to love our brothers and sisters, each of us children of God, in goodness, charity and human fraternity. On this first International Day of Human Fraternity, I ask you to please pray for one another, for the clergy, for those in consecrated life, for the faithful, and for all with whom we share this common home.

With renewed best wishes, I remain

Yours in Christ,

Most Reverend James F. Checchio, JCD, MBA
Bishop of Metuchen