I am very happy to be with you again this year for the pastoral visit. Why does the bishop come to you and stay with you for a few days? First of all, he comes to confirm you in the Catholic faith and to express the unity among all the faithful. This purpose is valid for all the dioceses in the world but has a particular value for us here in the Gulf, because our Church has a unique face in the world. We are a Church of migrants, composed of people who come from over a hundred nations.
We are not a collection of national churches that live side by side. We are not even an extension of our churches of origin or our parishes from our home countries. We are the Church of Jesus that lives in the Gulf. We have different traditions, we have different languages, we have different rites, but we form a single Church with different spiritual gifts; we form the mystical body of Christ in the Gulf.
We experienced this especially last year, when we celebrated the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Saint Arethas and his fellow martyrs. You too had the relics of the Arab martyrs of Najran for nine days in your parish.
Certainly, throughout the year, we have the joy of remembering the saints of our homeland or our personal inclination, which is very important to remain firm in our tradition. But here we are called to live to be part of the Church of Arabia which has its foundation in the testimony of the Apostles and Martyrs.
We are all different, but we have the same Christian faith. This year we celebrate 1700 years since the Council of Nicaea which promulgated the formula of our creed that we profess during the Sunday liturgy. It is an important occasion to remember the value of faith that unites us.
Furthermore, this year we are in a particular moment in the life of the Church: It is the Holy Year of the Lord 2025, which Pope Francis has dedicated to the theme of Hope.
The Holy Father has opened the Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica on the Christmas eve, and thus solemnly began the Holy Year of the Lord 2025. Along with all the dioceses around the world, we too in our Apostolic Vicariate, began this Jubilee year on the theme, “Pilgrims of Hope” in the Cathedral of Saint Joseph during the vigil mass of Sunday of the Holy Family.
All the parishes of our Apostolic Vicariate, in the UAE, Oman and Yemen, solemnly celebrated the opening of the jubilee on Epiphany Sunday. In fact, there is a deep connection between Epiphany and the Jubilee that invites us to be pilgrims of hope.
This parish of Saints Peter and Paul in Ruwi is the pilgrimage center for all the faithful in Oman. I therefore ask you to help and support your parish priest and the assistant priests in the initiatives that will be carried out as part of the pilgrimage for all the Catholics present in Oman.
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 Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The announcement of Christmas – Emanuel, God with us - expands in this way throughout the jubilee 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 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.
Furthermore, why do we call the Holy Year "jubilee"? We are accustomed to use the word jubilee when we have a wedding anniversary or another important event of the past, we generally say silver jubilee or golden jubilee, etc.
But the Lord's jubilee is different than the idea of celebrating the other jubilees. The word Jubilee comes from the Old Testament, from Jewish tradition. The book of Leviticus (25:10) speaks of a favorable year in which to forgive debts, experience God's mercy and give everyone the opportunity for a new beginning. Christian tradition takes up this ancient custom, relates it to the birth of Jesus.
In this way, every twenty-five years the Church celebrates the ordinary Jubilee of the Lord to intensely experience God's mercy and are called to share the same mercy with others, giving everyone the opportunity to start anew. We too in this year are called to experience God's mercy and to be merciful with everyone.
For this reason, I would like to meditate with you, during this time, on the theme of pilgrimage and the theme of Hope. Hope does not disappoint, Pope Francis tells us, because our hope is rooted in the love of Christ that never fails.
Being pilgrims means being on a journey towards a significant goal, a desired goal. But even as migrants we are always on the move, knowing that nothing in this world is definitive but everything passes away. Only the love of God never changes, and no one can separate us from the love of Christ. For this reason, I invite you to live being migrants as a form of your being pilgrims of hope.
The common experience of being a migrant is to feel that there is always something missing or lacking. But this experience of lacking can be an opportunity for us to open up to each other as we all have the same feeling of missing or lacking. Therefore, we can help each other to face together the future, standing in solidarity.
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.
Being 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.
I thank the Lord for these days that we can live together. May our Lord of Arabia help us to walk together and be witnesses of the Hope that comes from the love of Christ.