Among the hills of northern Italy, near the city of Bergamo, there is a village called Sotto il Monte, which means "under the mountain". It was there, on November 25, 1881, that a boy named Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born. He was the fourth of thirteen children, the first boy after three older sisters, in a family of farmers who worked land that was not even their own.

In the Roncalli home the table was long and the food was simple: almost every day there was polenta, a warm porridge made of corn. Money was scarce, but no one ever knocked at that door without receiving something, even if it was only a piece of bread and a place near the fire. There, between the smell of the fields and the evening prayers, Angelo learned how to be good.

At eleven, Angelo entered the seminary in Bergamo to study and prepare to become a priest. At fourteen, he began a notebook where he wrote down his prayers, his resolutions, and even his own stubborn faults, trying to grow a little better each day. He kept writing in that diary his whole life long, and many years later those pages became a famous book, the Journal of a Soul.

In 1904, Angelo was ordained a priest. When the First World War came, he served as a medical orderly, carrying wounded soldiers on stretchers, and later as a chaplain, comforting young men who were frightened and homesick. There he learned, up close, how much war hurts people, and he kept that lesson in his heart forever.

Later, the Pope sent him as his representative to faraway lands: Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. In those places hardly anyone was Catholic, but Bishop Angelo made friends everywhere, because he treated every person with respect, whatever their religion. In the dark years of another war, he used his stamps and his contacts to help many persecuted families escape from danger.

Afterwards he was sent to France, and in 1953, his hair already white, he became a cardinal and the Patriarch of Venice. He loved strolling through the city, chatting with the gondoliers and blessing the children, and he thought he would end his days there, a shepherd in the middle of his flock.

But in October 1958 Pope Pius XII died, and the cardinals gathered in Rome to choose his successor. On October 28 the white smoke rose, and the one chosen was him: Angelo Roncalli, seventy-six years old. He took the name John, and many people thought that, being so old, he would be only a passing pope who would change nothing at all.

How wrong they were. John XXIII had a wide smile, a round belly, and a heart even rounder. On his very first Christmas he visited sick children in a hospital in Rome, and the next day he walked into a prison to see the prisoners, telling them that since they could not come to him, he had come to them. The people soon found a tender name for him: the Good Pope.

One day, while praying, Pope John had an idea that surprised the world: he would invite the bishops of the whole planet to gather in Rome and talk together about how to bring Jesus to the world of today. A great meeting like that is called a council, and his became known as the Second Vatican Council. It is said that he explained the idea like this: he wanted to open the windows of the Church and let in some fresh air.

On October 11, 1962, Saint Peter's Square woke up covered with people. More than two thousand bishops, from every continent, entered the basilica in procession, and the council began. It was a day of celebration such as the Church had rarely seen.

That same night, thousands of people came back to the square carrying candles and torches, flickering like a carpet of stars. High in the sky, round and bright, shone the moon. Pope John came to the window of his room to greet the crowd and, glancing upward, said with a twinkle:

— Even the moon hurried here tonight to watch this spectacle.

Then, in the gentle voice of a grandfather, he made a request that no one ever forgot:

— When you go home, you will find your children. Give them a caress and tell them: this is the caress of the Pope.

And the people walked home that night carrying, in their hands, a caress from the Pope for every child.

In those years, the great nations eyed one another with suspicion, terrible weapons waiting in their arsenals, and the whole world feared a new war. So, in April 1963, Pope John wrote a letter called Pacem in Terris, which means "peace on earth". He wrote it not only for Catholics but for all people of good will, asking the peoples of the world to treat one another as brothers and to settle their differences by talking, never by fighting.

Pope John was already very ill when he finished that letter, and he knew it. Even so, he remained calm and cheerful, trusting God the way a child trusts a father. On June 3, 1963, he died in Rome, while crowds prayed for him in the square below.

The whole world wept for the Good Pope, even people who were not Catholic, because kindness is a language everyone understands. The great council he had begun carried on after him and renewed the life of the Church. And on April 27, 2014, in a Saint Peter's Square once again overflowing, Pope Francis declared him a saint, together with Saint John Paul II.

Today, when a child receives a goodnight caress, it is worth remembering that moonlit night in Rome. Saint John XXIII still teaches us that one small gesture of tenderness can travel all the way around the world.