The main theme for the Holy Year of 2025 is Pilgrims of Hope
Most of us would agree that we need the experience of hope – so what is hope, that elusive quality which might help us to get by day by day? Is it crossing our fingers and hoping for the best?
In this particular Holy Year the Pope holds up a banner of hope. He begins the Pronouncement of the Year:
SPES NON CONFUNDIT. “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5). In the spirit of hope, the Apostle Paul addressed these words of encouragement to the Christian community of Rome. Hope is also the central message of the coming Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every twenty-five years.
Hope does not disappoint us? No… but … the Pope recognises that we may tend towards anxiety, fear, hesitation, doubt, especially in the face of the contemporary political, social and economic context, may be ‘discouraged, pessimistic, cynical about the future as if nothing could possibly bring them/us happiness’. That is encouraging: he does recognise our reality, the sheer difficulty of life. But how is that recognition going to – well, make us feel better… let alone enable hope to be a foundation for us, be transformative? We know hope is important, but does it do more than brace us for another day? And if so, how, why, in what way?
What is hope? Pope Francis says:
The most convincing testimony to this hope is provided by the martyrs. Steadfast in their faith in the risen Christ, they renounced life itself here below.
I don’t want to be irreverent or disrespectful, but one might think that the identification of hope’s best proponents as those who get killed: this isn’t something which automatically make it really, really attractive. Quite seriously: is the thought of earthly life ending really the best way we have of finding the strength to keep going, (never mind living in joy)?
Does it mean that religion is actually just a tool to get us through the day? And if the theme of the Holy Year is hope, is the Holy Year merely an infusion of the drug by means of which we are to be numbed or comforted?
In the context of Holy Year and pilgrimage would it be merely that we are to pat each other on the arm and urge each other on?
Do we just grit our teeth and bear it, – because we probably wouldn’t need to have our lips available for a smile of sheer joy.
But .. returning to Francis: he talks about perspective, a mistaken perspective which he identifies with a loss joy and of hope:
All of us … need to recover the joy of living, * since men and women, created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26), * cannot rest content with getting along one day at a time, * settling for the here and now * and seeking fulfilment in material realities alone. * This 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.
and:
Happiness is our human vocation, a goal to which all aspire.
What occurs to connect the best examples of hope being those who get killed, and the recovery of joy and our vocation to happiness?
You will remember the story known as the Journey to Emmaus (Luke 24:34): Two disciples are walking along downcast, leaving Jerusalem after the Crucifixion when a stranger joins them on the road. He asks them why they are so despondent, and they tell him about Jesus, who was a prophet powerful in word and deed before God and man, who had been betrayed and crucified, ‘but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.’ Jesus walks with the disciples, explains the scriptures, shows them that the Christ was destined to suffer and to rise from the dead; he breaks bread with them and they recognize him in that; they head back for Jerusalem, re-join the Eleven and there occurs a proclamation of the Resurrection: “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.”
This episode, although it is not referenced in the Holy Year document, might nevertheless serve as a model:
- Dejected travellers
- we encounter Jesus
- our perspective changes
- we see things differently, understand, drink from the wellsprings of hope
- we turn around return strengthened and joyful as pilgrims to Jerusalem
- we rejoin the apostles
- together we proclaim the Resurrection
The Holy Year theme of hope is inextricable from the theme of encounter with the Lord Jesus
So this is a wee introduction to hope. But I think it needs a little more explanation: what actually is it, how do I access it, and more besides… keep coming back for updates!
Quotations are from Pope Francis, “Spes non confundit,” (Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2024), Papal Bull.