As we know well, Pope Francis officially declared 2025 the Year of Jubilee with the papal bull titled “Hope Does Not Disappoint”(Spes Non Confudit).” The Jubilee Year has begun with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on December 24, 2024 and end with the closing of the door on January 6, 2026, the solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord.
In the Old Testament, the Jubilee was a time of restoration every 50 years, when debts were forgiven, slaves were freed which I specified a bit more in my writing in “the Message for the Month” at the end of this newsletter, and the land rested. In the Catholic Church, Pope Boniface VIII reestablished the jubilee tradition in 1300 to offer Catholics a time for spiritual renewal. The 2025 Jubilee Year has the theme “Pilgrims of Hope” to promote peacebuilding in a world threatened by climate change and ongoing wars in many places in the world.
But the pilgrimage in hope should not be a ‘picnic’ but regarded as an invitation of God for us to renew our faith in God in witnessing hope in a world of conflict, fear, and confusion by building a fraternal and peaceful world in our everyday life. Again, however, it maybe easier said than done. The thing is how and what we can and shall do in daily life? For this we have to see and make hope not something abstract nor to be realized in the uncertain future. Rather, we try to accomplish hope by “moving forward day by day” mentioned by Pope Francis in his papal exhortation ‘Rejoice and Be Glad’ (Gaudete et Exsultate, no.7).
Going back to this issue of the newsletter, we can easily find some activities and practices of ALL Forum’s partner organizations and their members, and sincere reflections of participants in the 2024 Asian Youth Academy (AYA)/ Asian Theology Forum (ATF) in Manila, Philippines and the Moving School in Colombo, Sri Lanka. All their efforts would be a praxis of “moving forward day by day” to realize what we are hoping for. It would be closer to realization of hope if we properly do it in the light of “aggiornamento (adaptation) and renewal or reform”, the spirit of Vatican II. What we should accommodate and get over a structure or system as daily task or response without which we can’t live but makes us enslaved at the same time? This is the moment we need to have wisdom called “discernment” from the Holy Spirit and prayer individually and collectively by contemplating or thinking, reading, discussing, typing, feeling, talking, and doing all labors in our workplaces. During the process, if we can manage our choice of or decision on what to receive or transform, our exploration of life as such would lead us to how and what to do hope day by day.*
