Jubilee Hope

One of my seminary professors used to refer to hope as the characteristically Christian virtue. This special salience of hope has been highlighted by Pope Francis in his Ascension Thursday Bull of Indiction of the forthcoming Jubilee Year, entitled Spes Non Confundit, which is a quote from Saint Paul, "Hope does not disappoint" (Romans 5:5). The "Ordinary Jubilee" of 2025 will begin with the Opening of the Holy Door at Saint Peter's on Christmas Eve and its final closing on January 6, 2026. A particular feature of this Jubilee Year will be a special celebration in every diocese on the Sunday after Christmas (December 29). A pilgrimage to the local cathedral, the Pope proposes, "can serve to symbolize the journey of hope that, illumined by the word of God, units all the faithful" [Spes Non Confundit, 7].

Hope is clearly the leitmotif of the papal bull and presumably of the observances being planned for the Holy Year. Pope Francis has explicitly identified hope as "the central message of the coming Jubilee," and calls Holy Year pilgrims traveling to Rome "pilgrims of hope" [1]. Spes Non Confundit is a contemporary call-to-action regarding the virtue of hope and also "a virtue closely linked to hope," patience. "In our fast-paced world," warns Pope Francis, "we are used to wanting everything now. We no longer have time simply to be with others; even families find it hard to get together and enjoy one another’s company. Patience has been put to flight by frenetic haste, and this has proved detrimental, since it leads to impatience, anxiety and even gratuitous violence, resulting in more unhappiness and self-centredness" [4].

The part of the Bull which I found most immediately inspiring was the section on Signs of Hope. Here, Pope Francis emphasizes the "need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence. The signs of the times, which include the yearning of human hearts in need of God’s saving presence, ought to become signs of hope" [7] One such sign is a desire for peace. Another is "enthusiasm for life and a readiness to share it." Here, he recognizes and warns against "the loss of the desire to transmit life," reflected in a number of countries' "alarming decline of the birthrate." (This is especially a problem, of course, in contemporary Europe, but is also increasingly in evidence here in the U.S.) In contrast, Pope Francis cites "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" [8-9].

The Holy Year also calls us "to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind" [10]. Among these, the Pope particularly mentions prisoners, the sick, migrants, and the elderly. Esteem for the elderly, for "their life experiences, their accumulated wisdom and the contribution that they can still make, is incumbent on the Christian community and civil society, which are called to cooperate in strengthening the covenant between generations" [14].

Providentially, the coming Holy Year coincides with a very special anniversary of significance to all Christians, the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which first met on May 20, 325. Pope. Francis rightly recognizes Nicaea as "a milestone in the Church's history," the upcoming anniversary of which "invites Christians to join in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Blessed Trinity and in particular to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 'consubstantial with the Father,'  who revealed to us that mystery of love" [17]. Nicaea also famously addressed the indue of the date of Easter. The Pope notes that 2025 will be one of those years when all Christians will celebrate Easter on the same day.

One important aspect of any Holy Year is. the Jubilee Indulgence. So Pope Francis here takes the opportunity to reflect upon death, "a painful separation from those dearest to us, [which] cannot be mitigated by empty rhetoric" [20], and God's judgement, which brings about "a definitive encounter with the Lord." Relating this to the Jubilee Indulgence Pope Francis continues: "The evil we have done cannot remain hidden; it needs to be purified in order to enable this definitive encounter with God’s love. Here we begin to see the need of our prayers for all those who have ended their earthly pilgrimage, our solidarity in an intercession that is effective by virtue of the communion of the saints, and the shared bond that makes us one in Christ, the firstborn of all creation. The Jubilee indulgence, thanks to the power of prayer, is intended in a particular way for those who have gone before us, so that they may obtain full mercy" [22].

Indulgences remain one of those historically neuralgic issues which unnecessarily separate Christians and cause unfortunate arguments even to this day. What matters most, however, is precisely those aspects which the Pope has emphasized in the essential underlying teaching about the human need for purification from the lasting effects of sin and our solidarity in intercessory prayer. My sense is that we live surrounded by the unfortunate effects of human sinfulness - our own individual sins and those of others - and are all desperately in need of the feeling of forgiveness and experience of mercy which the Jubilee indulgence celebrates. It "is a way of discovering the unlimited nature of God's mercy," the Pope reminds us [23].

Finally, as has increasingly become customary among many modern papal pronouncements, the Bull of Indiction concludes with a meditation on Mary and hope. In her, "we see that hope is not naive optimism but a gift of grace amid the realities of life." Hence, "piety continues to invoke the Blessed Virgin as Stella Maris, a title that bespeaks the sure hope that, amid the tempests of this life, the Mother of God comes to our aid, sustains us and encourages us to persevere in hope and trust" [24].

Photo: Holy Door at Saint Peter's Basilica, which will be solemnly opened by the Pope on Christmas Eve to inaugurate the Ordinary Jubilee year 2025.