Hope, the focus of the Jubilee called by the Pope for 2025"Proclaim the Promise": Hope and vision for the future.700 years of Jubilees in the ChurchThe year 2025 has been declared by Pope Francis 'Jubilee Year of Hopecalling us all to be "pilgrims of hope". It is not casual. Nothing is: "The Holy Spirit will tell you what you have to say, he will speak for you". Our Lord said it very clearly. And so does He who guides His Church, His Vicar here on Earth.
When we hear in our environment, in our jobs or in our families, some voices inviting us, pushing us to pessimism affirming that the world is getting worse and worse, I call you to reflect and to defend, if you believe so, firmly, that it is not true. That the world is, as it has always been, worldly and that there is only one thing to do: to evangelize it. Nothing more. And nothing less, of course.
The world's need today is no longer exclusively material. Although it may be hard to believe, the world is not dying for a plate of rice or a new pair of pants, even though millions of people are unable to eat more than one meal a day, and sometimes not even one. The world is dying, above all, for lack of love and hope. We have left God aside and we have put, all of us to a greater or lesser extent, our hope in golden calves, in little gods, in everything that perishes. We have forgotten the eternal, a heaven that we can begin to live from here. All this has caused us to live in increasingly depressive societies, where anxiety and hopelessness have gradually taken over the daily reality of many human beings.
A little over a month ago I started to pilgrimage from Santo Toribio de Liébana to Bethlehem with only one desire in my heart: that the Child Jesus will give me strength and help me to bring the Gospel of Life to every corner of the world. This is the hope with which I join the Holy Father in the Jubilee Year that is about to begin. The hope to be born that millions of innocent beings have every day. The hope to see the light of those children who today are in their mothers' wombs and do not know what future awaits them. The hope of life in the face of the pessimism of death. The hope that God proposes to us in the face of the despair to which the evil one invites us. The hope of building a better world in the face of the despair of those who believe it is not possible. God has already conquered and only asks the same of us as Pope Francis:
Be pilgrims of hope.
Be missionaries of illusion!
Lay missionary and founder of Mary's Children Mission.
