"Pilgrims of hope": preparation for the 2025 Jubilee begins700 years of Jubilees in the ChurchAt the gates of the Jubilee 2025: hope, an anchor that does not failIn two weeks, on December 24, the ordinary Jubilee year will begin in the Catholic Church, and it is expected that the following will converge at Rome more than 50 million people from all over the world in the coming months.
The Holy Father has placed many hopes in this special event of God's grace, the conversion of the Christian people and the occasion of a live encounter with the Pope, that is, with our common Father.
The Jubilee program is impressive to read because it is full of significant encounters with a wide variety of groups who will be touched by the paternal attention of the Roman Pontiff: children, young people, intellectuals, workers, artists and many others.
It is customary that in Jubilee years the Holy Father addresses the Christian people to invite them to go on pilgrimage to Rome or to the cathedral of every diocese in the world, in the heart of the particular Churches where the being of the Universal Church is realized, to experience God's forgiveness and mercy.
Hope, the axis of the Jubilee
Precisely, the Holy Father Francis has proposed the new Ordinary Jubilee Year of 2025 with a very significant title: "The Jubilee Year of 2025".spes non confundit"He will add at the beginning: "I am thinking of all the pilgrims of hope who will come to Rome to experience the Holy Year and of those who, unable to come to the city of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their particular Churches. May it be for everyone a moment of living and personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the 'door' of salvation (cf. Jn 10:7.9); with Him, whom the Church has the mission to proclaim always, everywhere and to everyone as our hope (1 'Timothy` 1,1)" (n.1).
In these significant words he is proposing to us the theological virtue of hope as a line of force of the Jubilee and, in addition, he is reminding us of a theological virtue, a gift of God that we must ask for with humility.
With these Jubilee years the whole universal Church is rejuvenated and renewed in the three theological virtues with which the Christian life is renewed by a gift of God, since these virtues do not grow by repetition of acts, but by the benevolence of God who grants them to those who ask for them and dispose their souls.
On the one hand, the image that the Pope wishes to convey in this Jubilee year is a vibrant call to hope well founded on Christ and his saving doctrine, which is the cornerstone of redemption and whose infinite merits are precisely those that the Church distributes with full hands in the Jubilee years.
Pilgrimage
The Holy Father also recalls the meaning of pilgrimage supported by the goal: "It is not by chance that pilgrimage expresses a fundamental element of every Jubilee event. To set out on a journey is a typical gesture of those who seek the meaning of life. The pilgrimage on foot greatly favors the rediscovery of the value of silence, of effort, of what is essential. Next year too, pilgrims of hope will travel ancient and modern roads to intensely live the Jubilee experience. In addition, in the city of Rome itself, there will be other pilgrimages of hope. itineraries of faith that will be added to the traditional ones of the catacombs and the seven churches" (n. 5).
The Bull of the Holy Father also underlines the centrality of Jesus Christ: "This Holy Year will guide the way towards another fundamental anniversary for all Christians: in 2033 we will celebrate the two thousandth anniversary of the Redemption accomplished through the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are thus faced with a journey marked by great stages, in which the grace of God precedes and accompanies the people who walk enthusiastically in faith, diligently in charity and perseveringly in hope (cf. 1 Ts 1,3)" (n.5).
Other anniversaries
In the same vein, he will recall that the whole Church will celebrate the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in the Jubilee Year: "About three hundred bishops were present, who met in the imperial palace on May 20, 325, convoked at the initiative of the Emperor Constantine. After various debates, all of them, moved by the grace of the Spirit, identified themselves in the Symbol of Faith that we still profess today in the Sunday Eucharistic Celebration. The Council Fathers wished to begin this Symbol by using for the first time the expression 'We believe', as a testimony that in this 'we' all the Churches recognized themselves in communion, and all Christians professed the same faith" (17).
It is significant that the Holy Father, in the Bull of the Jubilee, wished to note the importance of the martyrs of the 20th century throughout the world and of the beatification and canonization of some of them, since their example will not remain without bearing fruit: "The most convincing witness to this hope is offered to us by the martyrs of the 20th century, who have been martyred by the Holy Father in the last century. martyrswho, firm in their faith in the Risen Christ, knew how to renounce earthly life so as not to betray their Lord. They are present in every age and are numerous, perhaps more than ever in our own day, as confessors of the life that has no end. We need to preserve their witness in order to make our hope fruitful. These martyrs, belonging to different Christian traditions, are also seeds of unity because they express the ecumenism of blood. During the Jubilee, therefore, my earnest desire is that there be an ecumenical celebration where the richness of the witness of these martyrs will be made manifest" (21).
Byung-Chul Han
Before concluding, I would like to make a brief reference to the new work of the Korean essayist and university professor Byung-Chul Han, based in Germany, on hope, because once again this author has been able to meet the needs of contemporary thought and deliver a brief and interesting treatise.
Byung-Chul Han has made a very positive approach to its work on hope opening a door to the desire to revive each day, to begin life with a renewed springtime: "the fundamental key to hope is the coming into the world as birth" (140). In fact, Byun-Chui Han will provide a good number of quotations that have in common that they "make us think" about hope, for as our author affirms: "Hope enlarges the soul to accommodate great things. That is why it is an excellent way of knowledge" (99).
