“Renewed in Hope”
On May 9th the Holy Father Pope Francis sent a letter in the form of Bull with a theme “Spes non Confundit” meaning that “Hope does not disappoint” taken from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 5:5. With this letter, the Supreme Pontiff aimed to provide guidance for the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, celebrating the birth of Our Savior Jesus Christ, which will commence on December 24, 2024, and conclude on January 6, 2026.
In a form of prayer, Pope Francis says that “for us all may the jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope”. Yes, hope is one of the three theological virtues given to us, given to everyone baptized in the true faith at baptism, nourished by other Sacraments but in a particular way by the Eucharist, source and summit of Christian life. The Eucharist, the bread of life, medicine of immortality, is food for the journey for the members of the pilgrim church.
Nevertheless, while filled with all virtues and graces, the journey to perfection, towards communion and union with God, does not lack situations and circumstances where hope seems to be lost, where Christians pass through and experience despair, when “uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feeling, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt”. Many people in our society are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could bring them happiness.
The world around us is full of instabilities, where war and instabilities have engulfed the whole world, people are dying of violence, fear and mistrust all over the world. Unemployment and the loss of jobs of many youths and young families, the presence of different diseases some of which are incurable, poverty that is increasing in the world, all these have led many people to lose hope and look at life as no longer having meaning. Even at the level of faith and religion, at times many have been questioning what is going on in the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals, which has led to some abandoning the faith and doubting the Church’s identity and mission.
Amidst all these, and many other challenges of life that the world and its inhabitants are passing through, the message of St. Paul emphasized by His Holiness the Pope Frances is what humanity needs, it is a message which the world, and every human heart is thirsting for. Let us be renewed in hope. Let us look up to Him, Our God who is faithful and able. The two weeks I spent in Africa, at home with my father and mother, and the whole family, I experienced from my parents especially what hope is and means, having gone home in doubt and fear for my father’s life I came back renewed in hope. My father is hopeful, my mother is hopeful, and their words are the words of assurance, their actions are all comforting. Each of my family members and I concretely experience the messages of St. Paul and Pope Francis. Yes, “Hope does not disappoint.”
- Father Justus, Parochial Vicar