Why did Jesus pray for unity when He came to bring division?

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Jesus’ statements that he was bringing division yet pray for unity has to be understood as two seperate issues.

First, the division. Very simply put, the division Jesus was speaking about, was the split that would be caused by those who accepted the Good News He was proclaiming - that the Kinggdom of God was actively amoung them especially and uniquely in His person, and those who rejected this message. And this division would effect even families.

The unity Jesus prayed for was the unity amoung those who did accept His Good News. For me, I think this another example of Jesus’ insight into human nature and how this division amoung His followers was quite possible, maybe even probrable.
 
Well put, Tome. I will add that it doesn’t seem to me that division is something that Jesus necessarily wanted, but he knew that it was inevitable, understanding the vast differences that would arise between those who chose to follow the ways of the world and those who chose to follow the way of Christ. One who is still attached to this world cannot understand what has been revealed by grace–it is beyond the logic of this world. Thus, an almost infinite division occurs.
 
I think of St. Francis when I think of the division of which Jesus spoke in this passage. His father opposed him embracing a life of poverty (and even locked him up in his hourse until Francis’ mother let him out), and when Francis was 25 demanded Francis give up his inheritance if Francis wouldn’t take up his father’s business. In front of the bishop Francis renounced his inheritance and took the clothes off his back and lay them at his father’s feet, and then went about his life with God. Those who devote themselves to God sometimes find family members opposed to this.
I’m not sure what passage you speak of when you say Christ prayed for unity, but perhaps it is in John 17. And yet at the same time during Jesus’ final words at the last supper he tells them repeatedly that others will hate them and persecute them because they follow him. I agree that unity with other people is always good, and especailly the unity of the Church which is what he prayed for especially in John then, but with such people unity can only be possible through the grace of God and an inner conversion, they grace Christ offered by his prayer to the Father.)
 
The ‘division’ seems to refer to a division among people as others have stated above.

But, there is also a division in a person’s life, the gospel like a sword cutting out the bad part of a person’s live and leaving the good part, the new part, in fellowship with Jesus.
 
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