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December 29, 2024Pope Francis has opened the Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica on the Christmas eve, and thus solemnly begun the Holy Year of the Lord 2025. Today, along with all the dioceses around the world, we too in our Apostolic Vicariate, begin the Jubilee year on the theme Pilgrims of Hope. This evening, we feel united in a single embrace of faith of all our faithful in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen. I am happy to see among us the priests, sisters and lay people representing the various parishes in our vicariate. Each parish will in turn celebrate the opening of the Holy Year in their respective parishes next Sunday, the Epiphany of the Lord.
I am happy to celebrate the solemn beginning of the Holy Year on Sunday dedicated to the Holy Family. Becoming a man, being born as human being, always means entering into a network of fundamental relationships: this is true for all of us who are born into a family. Likewise, Jesus, wanting to become one like us and to be among us, was born into a family and in the family, he grew in wisdom and grace until his public life.
Today's Gospel tells us about the finding of Jesus in the temple of Jerusalem, among the doctors. Mary and Joseph were anguished that Jesus was lost during the journey and finding him in the temple they asked him what he was doing? Jesus' words to Mary and Joseph make us understand that the purpose of every family is to introduce children to life and to open them to life as a mission.
Every family must find in the family of Nazareth an inspiration and a model to follow. In the same way, the Church presents itself as a family of families where each person is welcomed as a gift and where we are educated to live life as a vocation and mission for the kingdom of God.
As a family of families, we want to begin and walk this path of the jubilee dedicated to the theme of hope: we are called to be pilgrims of hope.
What is the meaning of this jubilee of the Lord? First, the purpose of the holy year that the Catholic Church celebrates every 25 years is to remember the incarnation of the Son of God. The announcement of Christmas expands in this way throughout the year. We celebrate an event that happened in time - the birth of Jesus - which has given direction and meaning to the time itself. Let us just think about the fact that most nations on earth count the years starting from the incarnation: we speak of years before Christ and after Christ, because he has given a direction to the history of humanity. He is the foundation and the fulfillment of the life of all, of the entire universe. He is the first and the last.
Pope Francis wanted to make hope as the theme of this Jubilee Year. Without hope we cannot live, we cannot commit ourselves to the future, or make the big decisions of life. But our hope is not a calculation of probabilities; it is not just an ordinary hope, or an optimistic attitude that things in the future will go well, as we sometimes say: let's hope that everything goes well...hopefully…
But Christian hope, on the other hand, is the certainty that concerns the future, until its final fulfillment. It is founded on something that is given to us now: which is the love of God. No one can ever separate us from the love of Christ. The foundation of our hope is love. Those who are loved walk towards the future with confidence and hope; those who are aware of being loved, know how to start over again even after moments of disappointment or failure. Christian hope, founded in love, remains even in tribulation.
This year we are called to be pilgrims of hope, that is, a people on a journey who find in Christ and in his love, the foundation to face the future, even if we do not know it. But we know that God's love is faithful and is forever.
Being a pilgrim means being on a journey towards a destination; the pilgrim goes through the adversities of life knowing that God never abandons him or her. For us who live in this part of the world, we live far from our homes and our countries of origin, being pilgrims, reminds us that we are migrants. Like the pilgrim, the migrant is also always on the move.
In the bull announcing the Jubilee, Pope Francis speaks of migrants with these words: “Signs of hope should also be present for migrants who leave their homelands behind in search of a better life for themselves and for their families. Their expectations must not be frustrated by prejudice and rejection. A spirit of welcome, which embraces everyone with respect for his or her dignity, should be accompanied by a sense of responsibility, lest anyone be denied the right to a dignified existence”.
We are a Church of migrants, we come from over a hundred different nations, our life depends on the condition of jobs and on many circumstances that are not in our control. But precisely because of this temporary condition that characterizes us as migrants, we need Christian hope, the hope that does not disappoint us because it is rooted in the love of Christ, an irrevocable love, a love forever.
Just as migrants, we want to be pilgrims of hope. We know well that what we experience today is temporary. If we fix our hope on things that pass away, we expose ourselves to disappointment because everything changes. But if we recognize that Christ is our hope, we will also be able to live difficult situations with patience and tenacity, knowing that the Lord always brings to completion the good that he began in us.
Dear faithful, I invite you to live intensely this holy year of hope. This year we will also celebrate seventeen hundred years since the Council of Nicaea, which gave us the Creed that we recite every Sunday. The Nicene Creed attests to us that God is the foundation of our hope.
I invite you to participate in the programs and the events of our vicariate planned for this jubilee year, especially in the churches declared as shrines for the jubilee, Namely The St Antony’s Church in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates and Sts Peter and Paul Church in Ruwi in the Sultanate of Oman. I invite you do a pilgrimage to these Churches and receive a plenary indulgence. Even for those who are in Yemen, it is possible to celebrate the jubilee year by referring to the communities of the Missionaries of Charity present. Furthermore, you will have the opportunity to participate in some of the international events planned in Rome, in particular I think of the pilgrimage that is planned with the young people in the beginning of August.
Dearest faithful, hope does not disappoint because it is rooted in the love of Christ. We hope that this Jubilee Year will strengthen us in hope, make us joyful in the Lord, always.
May Mary, Mother of Hope, protect us on the journey of this Holy Year. May she help us grow as a Church of migrants that becomes a pilgrim of hope to witness to everyone the joy of the encounter with Christ, light of the world, prince of peace.
Photo album of the Ceremony
