Pope Francis invitations us to be “Pilgrims of Hope” this Jubilee Yr. I’ve been reflecting on what this implies to me and to the world by taking a look at three key phrases: jubilee, pilgrims, and hope.
Jubilee
A Jubilee is a particular time. Traditionally, it was a time when prisoners and slaves had been freed, and money owed had been forgiven. Proper relationships had been re-established—between oneself and God and oneself and others. It was additionally a fallow interval, throughout which farmers allowed the fields to get better from the pressure of fixed planting. The Jubilee Yr is a time of renewal for the entire world. Primarily, it’s a tough reset.
Pilgrims
Recalling that St. Ignatius referred to himself as “the pilgrim,” this phrase resonates in a particular manner with practitioners of Ignatian spirituality. Like Ignatius, we’re referred to as to motion this 12 months—to placed on our boots and go forth into the world. Keep in mind additionally that when Ignatius set out on his pilgrimage, he was freshly out of months in mattress recuperating from the cannonball hit. There was seemingly no bodily remedy in these days, so we are able to assume that when Ignatius hit the street, whereas cabin fever should have had him raring to go, he was seemingly bodily deconditioned. He was severely out of practice and had a brand new, everlasting incapacity: a limp as a result of his shortened leg, which threw off his gait. There needed to be greater than just a little ache concerned in his pilgrimage.
The decision to pilgrimage goes out to everybody, each the religious athletes and the strolling wounded.
Likewise, the decision to pilgrimage that we hear this 12 months is not only for these match pilgrims who’ve skilled for months to stroll the Camino de Santiago or the Camino Ignaciano. This name goes out to everybody, each the religious athletes and the strolling wounded. All are referred to as.
Whereas pilgrimage is a journey ahead into the world, it additionally entails going inward in silence. It’s a time to prayerfully type out issues.
Lastly, pilgrims aren’t simply on a protracted stroll, they’re on a mission. What’s our mission this 12 months? First, we must be refilled and reinvigorated by the Spirit. On this epidemic of loneliness, we’d like bodily connectedness and group. Pilgrims come collectively, a convocation of all who’ve been referred to as. This 12 months is a particular time of group constructing, camaraderie, and renewal on a shared journey embracing the hope of the Risen Christ.
Hope
Hope is a central theme of Francis’s preach, and the hope of which Pope Francis speaks is that profound, life-changing hope rooted in religion. It’s the sort of hope that springs forth when all hope appears misplaced, the hope of the Resurrection. It’s this hope that’s so desperately wanted at the moment in a world racked by struggle and pure disasters, poverty, sickness, and struggling.
And so, this Jubilee Yr, we’re invited to return collectively as “pilgrims of hope”—establishing and renewing proper relationships with God, our brothers and sisters, and the planet God has gifted to us, liberating the oppressed, welcoming the stranger, caring for the widow and orphan, and spreading the Good Information.
I’m excited for this 12 months. We’d like group. We’d like renewal. We’d like therapeutic.
And, absolutely, we’d like some Good Information. The entire planet is craving for it.
