Just before Mass on Christmas Eve, Pope Francis opened the holy doors of St. Peter’s Basilica, marking the start of the Jubilee year for 2025—Pilgrims of Hope.  The Jubilee year marks a year of particular attention on forgiveness, reconciliation, and God’s mercy.  By making pilgrimages and passing through the recognized Holy Doors of churches in Rome and nations throughout the world, one gains special indulgences.

It is a year that the Church reminds us that the true source of jubilee and celebration is in the return to friendship with God—as Andrew experienced and then expressed as he went running to his brother Simon, unable to contain the great news that he had found the Messiah, the one who was to deliver his people.

This jubilee year is marked by the theme of Pilgrims of Hope.  We are called pilgrims of hope because Hope is our destination.  In a world that offers wealth, fame, instant gratification and encourages one to pursue dreams based on what makes us happy and the acquisition of material fulfillment, Christian hope stands apart.

This year may also motivate us to consider what it is that we hope for and what we pin our hopes on.  Do we rest our happiness and future on political leaders, job success, on getting into the right college, reaching a certain number of followers on social media, or accumulating material wealth.  None of these things can give true hope.  They cannot bring salvation, reconciliation and true fulfillment.  Their rewards, if they come, are passing and short loved.  Neither can they offer much of a guarantee of coming to pass and delivering on their promises.  If we rest our hope on anything or anyone but Christ, that hope will fail.

But as Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Spes Salvi (Saved in Hope), Christian hope is entirely different, unique and secure.  It is a Hope that has already been fulfilled through Christ.  In Hoping in His death and resurrection, we do not hope for something to happen, like ordinary hopes, but we look to the promise of union with God and fulfillment of His destiny for us.  We Hope, in other words, with a firm foundation of knowing what is to come, free of doubt, fear or worry.

We are also Pilgrims of Hope, in that we recognize the strength and power of the virtue.  Hope in Christ is what compels us forward.  Our faith and trust in His mercy is what encourages us onward and through the mire of the day to day and even grand struggles that we face.  We do not run on judgment, pride, worry or live driven by fear of what may happen tomorrow.

Allow this jubilee year to be a year of Hope, not because of what may happen in your life, but because of the one you follow.