Christmas begins Jubilee Year 2025

200 Words: Hope is placing our faith in God’s promises to us.

Every 25 years, the Catholic Church has a jubilee year. It means coming back to God, asking for forgiveness from God, forgiving others.

Jubilee Year 2025 begins today, finishing on the Feast of Epiphany 2026. Pope Francis wants us to focus on hope:

Hope is not deceptive because the love of God has been poured into our hearts (Romans 5).

Hope is placing our faith in God’s promises to us. God has poured his love into our hearts. This is a reality now and a promise unto eternity. Consequently, we are filled with hope.

The pope focuses our attention on three realities that will arouse hope in Jubilee 2025:

Praying for peace. Young married couples having children. Putting into action the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

The world is at war. Praying for peace arouses hope.

We have a demographic crisis in almost every country. Children are a tangible sign that we have hope.

There are seven corporal works of mercy beginning:

To feed the hungry.

There are seven spiritual works of mercy beginning:

To instruct the ignorant.

Can we fill our hearts with these 14 works of mercy and so arouse hope?

Amen