The
Face of
Mercy / Daniel Conway
May Christ, our hope, fill our hearts with abundant life and joy
(En Espanol)
The theme of the 2025 Jubilee Year announced by Pope Francis last month is “pilgrims of hope.” The Holy Father believes that the theological virtue of hope is especially needed at a time like this for our humanity.
According to Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of the Papal Basilica of St. Peter’s, Pope Francis’ invitation to actively participate in the coming Jubilee is welcome news “in a world ravaged by wars, poverty and threatened by climate change,” a world in which “peoples are facing increasing challenges in the social and political spheres.” The pope is confident that the Holy Spirit, who bestows rebirth to all who open their hearts to God’s grace, “will help us to keep lit the torch of hope we have been given, so that everyone can look to the future with hope.”
In the papal Bull of Indiction that officially declares 2025 as a Year of Jubilee, Pope Francis says:
Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt. Often we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness. For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope.
Our hope as Christians is not in ideas or political parties or social systems. Our hope is based on a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, whose life, death and resurrection are the source and substance of all hope. We hope in him, through him and with him.
The Holy Father identifies several “signs of hope” that can guide and reassure us in these troubled times. These hopeful signs can be discerned through careful attention to what the Second Vatican Council referred to as the “signs of the times” that “in language adapted to every generation, [the Church] can respond to people’s persistent questions about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other” (“Gaudium et Spes,” #4).
According to Pope Francis:
The first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war. Heedless of the horrors of the past, humanity is confronting yet another ordeal, as many peoples are prey to brutality and violence. What does the future hold for those peoples, who have already endured so much? How is it possible that their desperate plea for help is not motivating world leaders to resolve the numerous regional conflicts in view of their possible consequences at the global level? Is it too much to dream that arms can fall silent and cease to rain down destruction and death? May the Jubilee remind us that those who are “peacemakers” will be called “children of God” (Mt 5:9). The need for peace challenges us all and demands that concrete steps be taken.
Longing for peace is the first sign of hope, but unless “concrete steps are taken” we are “prey to brutality and violence” and fall into anxiety and despair.
That’s one reason why the pope insists that “looking to the future with hope also entails having enthusiasm for life and a readiness to share it.” Without a commitment to life itself and a willingness to bring new life into the world, despair becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. “For the desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters as a sign of the fruitfulness of their love,” the Holy Father says, and “ensures a future for every society. This is a matter of hope: it is born of hope, and it generates hope.”
Enthusiasm for life leads to joy. Seeking fulfillment in material things, the pope says, “leads to a narrow individualism and the loss of hope; it gives rise to a sadness that lodges in the heart and brings forth fruits of discontent and intolerance.”
Hope overcomes all sadness and despair. It does not disappoint (Rom 5:5). May Christ, our hope, fill our hearts with his abundant life and joy!
(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †