Read this week's message from Father Don
Happy New Year, my dear friends,
January 2025 marks the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Hope, a Holy Year following the ancient practice begun in 1300 of holding special years of repentance and renewal regularly every 25 years.
When announcing the Jubilee last spring, Pope Francis identified its specific spiritual focus “We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and far-sighted vision.”
His formal Bull of Indiction expands on this theme “In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come…Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings …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. May the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope.”
The document offers further comment on the theme:
In addition to finding hope in God’s grace, we are also called to discover hope in the signs of the times. We need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world …. The yearning of human hearts in need of God’s saving presence, ought to become signs of hope.
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.
The desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters as a sign of the fruitfulness of their love ensures a future for every society. This is a matter of hope: it is born of hope and it generates hope.
Pope Francis calls upon Christians to be “tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind,” including prisoners, the sick, the poor, migrants and the elderly. He makes particular reference to the young “who are the very embodiment of hope…With renewed passion, let us demonstrate care and concern for adolescents, students and young couples. Let us draw close to the young, for they are the joy and hope of the Church and of the world!”
He challenges us to “offer a smile, a small gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed, in the knowledge that, in the Spirit of Jesus, these can become, for those who receive them, rich seeds of hope.”
Pope Francis concludes with the image of the anchor: We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul (Heb 6:18). Those words are a forceful encouragement for us never to lose the hope we have been given … The image of the anchor is eloquent; it helps us to recognize the stability and security that is ours amid the troubled waters of this life, provided we entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus. The storms that buffet us will never prevail, for we are firmly anchored in the hope born of grace, which enables us to live in Christ and to overcome sin, fear and death. This hope… makes us rise above our trials and difficulties, and inspires us to keep pressing forward, never losing sight of the grandeur of the heavenly goal to which we have been called.
I invite you to reflect upon the pope’s words and identify practical ways in which you and the parish can offer compassionate signs of hope to the needy of our world.
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