Peter, the Pope and Unity

3rd Sunday of Easter Our Gospel story today is one of the passages we as Catholics point to in the Scriptures where Jesus sets Peter apart from the other Apostles, in which we read the beginnings of the papacy and the pope!  God gave us a great gift in our pope, a leader and figurehead meant to keep Jesus' Church united as ONE body.  Jesus' great prayer was that all of his followers might be one, as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, that we would all be ONE...at present there are over 40,000 different Christian denominations.  Thanks be to God for our ONE Catholic Church, united throughout the whole world, for the gift of the pope to keep us united (even in the midst of struggles and difficulties and disagreements - kind of like the head of a family), and for the gift of the Eucharist where we become what we are: ONE in the Body of Christ!