We have begun the Jubilee Year with the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peters. Regarding this Jubilee, Pope Francis wrote:
Pilgrimage is of course a fundamental element of every Jubilee event… The Jubilee Churches along the pilgrimage routes and in the city of Rome can serve as oases of spirituality and places of rest on the pilgrimage of faith, where we can drink from the wellsprings of hope, above all by approaching the sacrament of Reconciliation, the essential starting-point of any true journey of conversion (Spes non confundit, 5).
A pilgrimage of hope for those with faith. Yet our Lord laments: “when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). Pope Benedict XVI also laments of “a profound crisis of faith that has affected many people” leading to a breakdown of the “unitary cultural matrix” of values inspired by faith—what we call Christian culture (Porta Fidei, 2). As a result, many Christians are more concerned about the political consequences of religious beliefs—that they may lose their political office or be marginalized in the workplace for beliefs on abortion, gender, “gay-marriage,” etc.—than they are about the eternal consequences of what Christ has revealed. Many of those who were raised in religiously Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish homes are now more concerned about the economy and material comfort than about the moral situation of our country and families. Isn’t this why it is so hard for some to believe in Christ and the truth he has revealed to us?
The Jubilee Year is an opportunity to respond anew to Christ’s call to follow him. Yet to follow Christ we need to be ready to give up our comfort, as our Lord warned: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). Are you ready for that?
Knowledge of our Faith can enrich our relationship with each person of the Blessed Trinity—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we really love the Triune God, we should want to know all we can about each person we love. God reveals himself as a family—a Trinity of persons—and then how he welcomes us into his family—the Church, with its members, the saints—through a relationship with each person. So, we develop a good child-like relationship with God the Father; we enter into a deep love with Christ who is our brother, friend, and love; and we nurture the new Life that dwells within us—the Holy Spirit—who inspires and moves us to love even more.
Sacraments are key to our Pilgrimage of Hope. Sacraments are the expressions of love between God and us, establishing and deepening that love. We are baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” to enter into God’s family; we confess our sins to reestablish those relationships; as we adore Christ in the Eucharist, attend the sacrifice of the Mass, and receive Holy Communion we are fed by the Father, we experience Christ’s total and sacrificial love, and the Holy Spirit bonds us into a communion of love with Christ.
God’s mercy allows us face life’s most important pilgrimage of hope, the one to eternal life, a fulfillment and continuation of our earthly life: if we live our life as though God didn’t exist would we want to live our eternity as though He did?
So, let us live and embrace this Jubilee Year as we direct our daily lives toward the final encounter with Jesus Christ in our heavenly home.
Fr. John Waiss
Pastor
