Cardinal Tobin: Our Lenten journey, a pilgrimage of hope

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, 

The theme for Jubilee Year 2025 is “Pilgrims of Hope.” Pilgrimages are as old as Judaism and Christianity (and many other religious traditions). St. Luke tells us that the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary and Joseph) made an annual pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem in observance of the Feast of the Passover. 

Pope Benedict XVI writes in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives that the deeper meaning of these annual pilgrimages for the Jewish people was the powerful affirmation that Israel was “God’s pilgrim people, always journeying toward its God and receiving its identity and unity from the encounter with God in the one Temple. The Holy Family takes its place within this great pilgrim community on its way to the Temple and to God.” 

In his Bull of Indiction for the 2025 Jubilee Year, titled Spes non confundit (Hope does not disappoint), Pope Francis addresses the virtue of Hope in some detail. 

The pope centers on the theme of hope as a core message of his papacy. (His recently published autobiography is titled “Hope.”) Pope Francis urges believers to use this Holy Year as a moment to renew their hope in God amidst global challenges, particularly highlighting the need for peace and addressing suffering through diplomacy and social action. The Holy Father calls for all of us to be “Pilgrims of Hope” who actively work towards a better future by engaging with the signs of hope present in the world, even in difficult times.  

 We all know what hope means in our lives. Even when it is absent, we long for it because we know intuitively that without hope all is lost. In the heart of every person, hope reveals itself as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. We cannot know for certain what will happen, but we always have hope—even in the direst circumstances. 

Continue reading Cardinal Tobin’s latest newsletter.