Fr. Shenan J. Boquet: Hope in the New Year

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ― St. Teresa of Calcutta

The Jubilee Year began on Christmas Eve with Pope Francis opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. A jubilee year, which occurs every twenty-five years, serves both to remind and encourage all Catholics (indeed all peoples) to dedicate their attention to the renewal of their relationship with God and with their neighbor.

In his papal bull Spes non confudit, which announced the Jubilee Year, the Holy Father expressed his desire that the “Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ (cf. Jn 10:7,9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere, and to all as ‘our hope’“ (1 Tim 1:1).” In the midst of wars, violence, political turmoil, injustice, and indifference to the incomparable value of human life, the Pope wants the Jubilee to be lived as a “year of hope,” a time to not only recommit to the love of God but also to the love of one’s neighbor, “to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” …