Pilgrims of Hope
Pope Francis chose these three words as the theme of the Jubilee year 2025 and the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.
Last week, we reflected on what it is to be a Pilgrim people, or as the Council spoke of us as a “Pilgrim Church”.
Today, I reflect on hope.
The hope to which Pope Francis alludes is not some pious wish or vague desire. The virtue of hope is confident trust and conviction that the promise made will be fulfilled. Hope undergirds the strength of faith.
Richard Gaillardetz died in 2023 after a long battle with cancer. In the course of his illness, he wrote a memoir of his experiences of the gradual fading away of the breath of life. He called the memoir While I Breathe, I Hope. He speaks of hope as “an attitude in which we dare to commit ourselves to that which is beyond all human control; the willingness to commit oneself in thought and deed to the uncontrollable which fills us and sustains us.”
The Church makes that pilgrimage of life seeking the fullness of God’s reign with the confidence that even though I do not see the goal close at hand, I will see it. The fulfillment will be revealed as promised.
Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians states:
“Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Francis calls us to walk as people confident that the promise made will be fulfilled, as people who remember the word of the angel to Joseph: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.” (Matthew 1:23)
Father Stephen Adrian
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