The Mission of Evangelization in the Archdiocese of Portland: Let us Be Pilgrims of Hope!

December 29, 2024
Homily for the Opening Mass for the Jubilee Year 2025

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The Holy Father has given the theme of hope for this Jubilee Year. I think the Holy Father recognizes something. People in the world today are losing hope and the virtue of hope needs to be reawakened in all of us. The Holy Father calls us to be pilgrims of hope during this year. But what is hope?

In the papal Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, the document by which the Holy Father proclaimed this Jubilee Year, Pope Francis says we all know what it means to hope. Hope has a very deep meaning. Hope is always looking to the future with an eye to that which is to come.

We hope for a lot of things on a human level. We hope this year will be a good one for us. We hope that financially we’ll be secure this year. We hope that the person in our family who is sick will be cured. We hope that the wound in our marriage might be healed. We hope that our children or grandchildren will return to the practice of the faith. Indeed, we hope for a lot of things, but the true meaning of hope in the Christian, theological sense is much deeper.

Hope is one of the three theological virtues. What are the three theological virtues? Faith, hope, and love. These virtues are what we call infused virtues. They’re not virtues we can simply come up with on our own on a natural human level. They’re supernatural gifts that are given to us by God, poured into our soul on the day of our Baptism. The baby who is baptized has the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Those virtues must be developed in our life, so they don’t just stay a stagnant seed planted in us. Through our cooperation they grow as God continues to pour out more grace upon us. Those virtues grow as we develop and grow spiritually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

This hope is the hope of what God promises us, which is nothing less than the Kingdom of God. Our hope is what Christ has promised us—eternal life and happiness with him, forever in the Kingdom of Heaven.

We hope for a lot of things in this world, but that falls so short of what God really intends for us, what he has planned for us, and what he has made us for. We weren’t made for this world. We were made for the Kingdom of God. We were made to be with God forever in the joy and happiness of heaven. Simple as that. That is our hope.

The problem is, we get so caught up in the struggles, the anxieties, the doubts, the fears, and the worries of life, that we lose sight of that hope which is given to us in Christ the Lord. All the sufferings of this life are passing away and what awaits us is a gift beyond imagination. A gift which is the real meaning and purpose of our life. This is what we must rediscover in this Jubilee Year. We must rediscover our hope because we are called to be pilgrims of hope.

What does it mean to be a pilgrim of hope? First, we need to be on a journey to rediscover hope in our own life. Even amidst our sufferings, our struggles, and our sin— none of us are hopeless. God does not give up on any of us and no matter what we struggle with in life, God never gives up on us. We have hope for the healing that he wants to bring us, the rediscovery of the meaning and purpose of our life. That’s what we must be pilgrims about this year—pilgrims that rediscover what it means to hope in all that God has promised: his mercy, his love, his forgiveness, peace, and joy.

Secondly, we are called to carry this hope to others who desperately need it. The world in many corners has become a very dark place. Many people walk in darkness. They have no idea why they even exist. Why is the suicide rate so high in our culture today? Because people have lost hope. They don’t know why they were even created. It is our mission, thus, to be pilgrims of hope to them. To carry this gift from God to others who live in doubt, fear, worry, anxiety, suffering, loneliness, abandonment, and sin.

We are to be the pilgrims of hope. We are to be ministers of hope. Not me alone. Not all of our wonderful priests and future priests alone. We can’t do it alone. We need you. I am never going to meet the people you meet every day. I may never meet that coworker of yours who has it rough and is losing hope. I may never meet that neighbor, that fellow parent and family at the school. Whoever it is. I may never meet them, but you will. It is your job to bring them hope and be a pilgrim to them; to carry this gift to them.

In closing, I would encourage you to read the Bull of Indiction, and the Holy Father’s letter opening this Jubilee Year. Here he talks about all the different groups in our society today who need to have this word of hope. There are many listed, but one important group is our young people.

The young today need hope. They desperately need hope. Whether that’s an adolescent, a teenager, a young adult—it’s a different world than what many of us grew up with and it can be very scary. It is our job to bring that gift of hope to them, and to all who are walking in despair. This is evangelization. This is what it means to bring the Gospel, the Good News of God’s mercy to others. We do it by sharing with another what God has done in our own life.
 
Lastly, I would encourage you to read the Holy Father’s encyclical letter on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Holy Father roots this hope in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our hope flows from the Sacred heart of Jesus, pierced on the cross for our salvation, and from which blood and water flowed forth as a fountain of grace and life for the world. Let us carry that grace of the heart of Jesus to the people who need it so desperately, starting with ourselves and our families, and then radiating out to the whole world.

Archbishop Sample’s full homily from the Jubilee Year 2025 Opening Mass is available to watch or listen to at https://vimeo.com/1042170378