2025 Jubilee Year and Hope

January 2025 has definitely taken off. So much activities to expect yet so much unknown as well in the horizon.

Very fitting for a month named after the Latin termJanuariusequivalent to Janus, an ancient Roman godof doorways and beginnings, of the rising/setting of the sun, often depicted with two bearded heads that face in opposite directions, looking to both the future and the past.

For our new year’s journey during this Jubilee Year, Pope Francis reminds all to be “pilgrims of hope” in his Papal Bull entitled “SPES NON CONFUNDIT.“Hope does not disappoint” (Rom5:5).

Some highlights:

“Everyone knows what it is to hope.

In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire/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/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. God’s word helps us find reasons for that hope.

Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love:

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship/or distress/persecution/famine, or nakedness/or peril or the sword?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom8:35.37-39).”

Hope allows us a glimpse of light beyond the darkness and “to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence.”

Hope strengthens our desire for peace in our world, to hear/believe that the desperate pleas of the needy poor will be finally heard/responded to.

May hope be granted to the billions of thepoor, who often lack the essentials of life.

The need for peace challenges us all and demands that concrete steps be taken related to ‘fears about the future, the lack of job security/adequate social policies and social models whose agenda is dictated by the quest for profit rather than concern for relationships.’

May the Christian community always be prepared to defend the rights of those who are most vulnerable, opening wide its doors to welcome them, lest anyone ever be robbed of the hope of a better future.”

Celebrated every 25 years, Jubilee Year is “a special time of forgiveness of debts, liberation of slaves, and return of lands to their original owners. “

“The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” (Is61:1-2).

The Jubilee reminds us that“the goods of the earthare not destined for a privileged few, but for everyone,that the rich must be generous and not avert their eyes from the faces of their brothers and sisters in need. All are summoned to a serious examination of conscience.”

If we really wish to prepare a path to peace in our world, let us commit ourselves to remedying the remote causes of injustice, settling unjust and unpayable debts, and feeding the hungry.”

“Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!” (Ps27:14).