In this Jubilee Year, the Holy Father invites us to pilgrimage with faith and hope. To do so, we must prepare our hearts and open ourselves to God’s grace.
Dear brothers and sisters:
With the penitential sign of ashes on our heads, we begin the annual pilgrimage of Holy Lent, in faith and hope. The Church, mother and teacher, invites us to prepare our hearts and open ourselves to God’s grace so that we can celebrate with great joy the Paschal victory of Christ, the Lord, over sin and death, as Saint Paul exclaimed: «Death has been defeated. Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting?» ( 1 Cor 15:54-55). Jesus Christ, dead and risen, is, in fact, the center of our faith and the guarantor of our hope in the great promise of the Father: eternal life, which He has already fulfilled in His beloved Son (cf. Jn 10:28; 17:3) [1].
During this Lent, enriched by the grace of the Jubilee Year, I wish to offer some reflections on what it means to walk together in hope and to discover the calls to conversion that God’s mercy directs to all of us, both personally and communally.
First of all, to walk. The theme of the Jubilee, “Pilgrims of Hope,” evokes the long journey of the people of Israel toward the Promised Land, narrated in the Book of Exodus; the difficult path from slavery to freedom, loved and guided by the Lord, who loves His people and remains faithful to them always. We cannot remember the biblical Exodus without thinking of so many brothers and sisters today fleeing from situations of misery and violence, seeking a better life for themselves and their loved ones.
This presents a first call to conversion, because we are all pilgrims in life. Each one can ask oneself: how am I being challenged by this condition? Am I truly on the way, or am I somewhat paralyzed, static, afraid and lacking hope; or am I satisfied in my comfort zone? Do I seek paths of liberation from situations of sin and lack of dignity? A good Lent exercise would be to confront the concrete reality of some immigrant or pilgrim, allowing ourselves to be challenged, to discover what God is asking of us, to become better travelers toward the Father’s house. This is a good “exam” for the wayfarer.
Secondly, let us undertake this journey together. The vocation of the Church is to walk together, to be synodal [2]. Christians are called to make the journey together, never as solitary travelers. The Holy Spirit urges us to go out of ourselves to go toward God and our brothers and sisters, and never to close ourselves in [3]. Walking together means being artisans of unity, starting from the common dignity of children of God (cf. Gal 3:26-28); it means walking shoulder to shoulder, without trampling or dominating others, without harboring envy or hypocrisy, without letting anyone fall behind or feel excluded. We go in the same direction, toward the same goal, listening to each other with love and patience.
During this Lent, God asks us to check whether in our lives, in our families, in the places where we work, in parish or religious communities, we are capable of walking with others, of listening, of overcoming the temptation to close ourselves in our self-referentiality, only caring for our needs. Let us ask ourselves before the Lord if we are able to work together as bishops, priests, consecrated persons, and laity, in service of the Kingdom of God; if we have an attitude of welcome, with concrete gestures, toward those who approach us and those who are far away; if we make people feel part of the community or if we marginalize them [4]. This is a second call: conversion to synodality.
Thirdly, let us walk this path together in hope of a promise. The hope that does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5), the central message of the Jubilee [5], be for us the horizon of the Lent journey toward the Paschal victory. As Pope Benedict XVI taught us in the Encyclical Spe salvi, “human beings need unconditional love. They need that certainty that makes them say: ‘Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present, nor future, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God, manifested in Christ Jesus, our Lord’” ( Rom 8:38-39) [6]. Jesus, our love and our hope, has risen [7], and lives and reigns gloriously. Death has been transformed into victory, and in this lies the faith and hope of Christians, in the resurrection of Christ.
This is, therefore, the third call to conversion: that of hope, of trust in God and His great promise, eternal life. We must ask ourselves: do I possess the conviction that God forgives my sins, or do I behave as if I could save myself alone? Do I long for salvation and invoke God’s help to receive it? Do I concretely live the hope that helps me read the events of history and drives me to commit to justice, fraternity, and caring for our common home, acting in a way that no one is left behind?
Brothers and sisters, thanks to God’s love in Jesus Christ, we are protected by the hope that does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5). Hope is “the anchor of the soul,” secure and firm [8]. In it, the Church prays that “all may be saved” ( 1 Tm 2:4) and hopes to one day be in the glory of heaven united to Christ, her bridegroom. As Saint Teresa of Jesus expressed: “Wait, wait, for you do not know when the day or the hour will come. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, although your desire makes the certain doubtful, and the short time long” ( Exclamations of the soul to God, 15, 3) [9].
May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Hope, intercede for us and accompany us on the Lent journey.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, February 6, 2025, memorial of Saints Paul Miki and companions, martyrs.
FRANCISCO
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[1] Cf. Encyclical letter Dilexit nos (October 24, 2024), 220. [2] Cf. Homily at the Holy Mass for the canonization of Blessed Juan Bautista Scalabrini and Blessed Artemides Zatti (October 9, 2022). [3] Cf. ibid. [4] Cf. ibid. [5] Cf. Bull Spes non confundit, 1. [6] Encyclical letter Spe salvi (November 30, 2007), 26. [7] Cf. Easter Sunday Sequence. [8] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1820.Reference image courtesy of VaticanNews.va
