War-torn world needs real hope in Christ, say bishops in Jubilee Year messages

(OSV News) -- Bishops in the U.S. and Canada are exhorting the faithful to embrace the virtue of hope during the Catholic Church's Jubilee Year 2025, which Pope Francis will commence by opening the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome Dec. 24.

The theme of the year, which marks the 2,025th anniversary of Christ's incarnation, is "Pilgrims of Hope" -- and the responsibility to become just that is crucial for humanity as a whole, said Bishop Donald J. Hying of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, in his Dec. 18 pastoral letter on the Jubilee Year.

"The Holy Father calls us to be signs of hope in a world which desperately needs it in this current moment!" wrote Bishop Hying. "The human race is riven by ongoing bloody conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and Syria; 500 million people suffer food inadequacy because of violence in places like the Sudan, Haiti, and Ethiopia. Increasing numbers of people are fleeing their homelands to escape poverty and violence."

In addition, said Bishop Hying, "our country is divided by profound political conflict and economic imbalance," while "decreasing numbers of people practice religious faith and increasing numbers have lost their moral mooring in the transcendent order of God."

He also pointed to "record high" suicide rates and mental health issues, "especially among our beloved young people," and "own personal struggles, sufferings, and sorrows.

"We can easily fall into despair and sadness when we contemplate the tragedies before us," he said.

"Hope is hard sometimes," wrote Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles in a Dec. 18 reflection on the upcoming Jubilee Year. "We can look around at the world and see plenty of signs that things aren’t the way God intends them to be."

Amid such darkness, the Jubilee Year offers "a spiritual reboot" that can "reinvigorate our understanding and embrace of Catholicism as we make our pilgrim way to the Father’s house," said Bishop Hying in his letter.

"We need hope more than ever!" he wrote, stressing that the theological virtue of hope is "much more authentic and resilient than optimism."

Archbishop Gomez urged the faithful to "make hope more than a feeling."

Along with faith and charity, hope is one of the three theological virtues, and enables faithful to "desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit," according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1817).

"Our hope is true," wrote Archbishop Gomez. "We hope in the promises of Jesus, who was born for us and died for us, and having risen from the dead now walks with us, as our friend and our leader."

Several bishops highlighted how the virtue of hope is inextricably bound to Christ's cross.
In a Dec. 13 commentary, Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan of Camden, New Jersey, said the Jubilee Year logo makes that connection crystal clear.

The logo's four embracing figures, representing the four corners of the earth, stand aligned behind the cross -- the base of which is an anchor -- atop waves that Bishop Sullivan said "reflect the rough situations that, at times, happen to us and to the world."

With the cross "the sign of faith and the source of hope," the anchor becomes "a symbol of hope," which "steadies us when life throws punches at us," wrote Bishop Sullivan.

He cited the motto of the Carthusian religious order, "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis" -- or, as Bishop Sullivan translated, "The Cross stands steady as the world goes topsy-turvy."

"When your experience in life is rocky and turbulent, when the world situation is dangerous, look to the Cross of the Lord and be steadied by the hope it offers," wrote Bishop Sullivan.

Bishop Patrick M. Neary of St. Cloud, Minnesota, also underlined the connection between hope and the cross in a Dec. 11 commentary on the Jubilee Year, pointing to both his episcopal motto, "Ave Crux, Spes Unica" ("Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope") and the constitutions of his own religious order, the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Quoting the order's constitutions, Bishop Neary wrote, "Jesus entered into the pain and death that sin inflicts. He accepted the torment but gave us joy in return. We whom he has sent to minister amid the same sin and pain must know that we too shall find the cross and the hope it promises. The face of every human being who suffers is for us the face of Jesus who mounted the cross to take the sting out of death. Ours must be the same cross and the same hope.”

Hope must be nourished through the sacraments, and demonstrated in concrete actions, said a number of bishops.

"We begin with Confession and Holy Communion," said Canada's Ukrainian Catholic bishops in their Dec. 18 pastoral letter on the Jubilee Year, adding that "these two Mysteries/Sacraments … have a central role in the Jubilee Year."

In addition, they said, "becoming an authentic follower of Christ and then living the life of a follower, requires making a sacrifice (often an ongoing sacrifice) and actively witnessing to our faith."

Bishop John G. Noonan of Orlando, Florida, said that the Jubilee Year, which traces its roots to ancient Judaism, provides fresh opportunities to proclaim the message of Christ's salvation to a modern world -- a task that begins with self-examination, and one that is sustained by the Eucharist.

"It’s hard to translate forgiveness of debt and some of the traditional ways the Jubilee Year was celebrated to the world we live in today, but we can think about what do we need to unload -- fear, anger, frustration, vengeance, violence," said Bishop Noonan in an undated Jubilee Year interview posted on the Orlando Diocese's website. "Sometimes we’re living with all of this and by osmosis it’s penetrated our lives and become part of who we are. Now it’s time to empty ourselves of it.

"But then, with what are we going to fill ourselves?" said Bishop Noonan, adding that the Jubilee Year is "an inviting of Christ into your life, through the Eucharist, bringing hope into your life and following Christ."