December 8, 2024 - Pastor Message
December 21, 2024PILGRIMS OF HOPE
PILGRIMS OF HOPE
JUBILEE 2025 (cont.)
“Don’t you know? Or haven’t you heard? God is the eternal Lord, who created the ends of the earth; he will not fail or weary, nor is there an investigation of his wisdom. He gives vigor to the tired and multiplies strength for the weak. Children may fail and weary, and the young may slip and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will have new strength: they will take up wings like the eagle’s; they will run and not weary; they will walk and not fail” (Isaiah 40:28-31).
The Church has designated the new liturgical year Jubilee 2025, the theme of which is “Pilgrims of Hope”. Last week, we reflected on the meaning of a jubilee and what it means to be pilgrims, people on a journey to a sacred place to reach a new and greater place in our relationship with God. Our sacred journey through this world is a pilgrimage to the Kingdom of God, a journey full of danger and doubt. Alone, we could never reach our goal, but thanks be to God who does not leave us alone. Like the pillar of flame that led the Israelites through the desert on their way to the Promised Land (Exodus 13:21), God leads us on our way by the flame of hope.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines hope as the “theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1817). Virtues are habits and attitudes directed toward good. As a theological virtue, hope comes from and is directed toward the ultimate good, the source and goal of all that is good, God. Hope is “infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and meriting eternal life”, informing and animating our lives in this world (CCC 1813). Informed by our faith in the promises of Christ, hope moves us to desire the fulfillment of his promises in heaven above all else and to persistently make the choices in this life that will obtain that goal, regardless of the obstacles we face.
We face many obstacles on our journey, not least of which is the Enemy’s attack on faith and religious practice resulting in a growing sense of hopelessness in our world. Without hope, our faith becomes misplaced, our desires confused, and our choices shortsighted. Feeling discouraged and abandoned, we no longer trust in Christ’s promises or desire their fulfillment but instead place our hope for happiness in the fleeting things of this world, bouncing aimlessly from one shallow, disappointing experience to the next. Despairing of finding true and lasting happiness, which we can never do in this world, we settle for cheap thrills and mindless distractions. Taken to its extreme, if the difficulties of life become too much for the brief pleasure of these things to overcome, despair can even lead us to choose the nothingness that, without hope, we believe awaits us by ending this life.
Like almost never before, our world needs hope. That is our mission this jubilee year, to walk our journey through this life as pilgrims led by hope and to share our hope with those who walk in the darkness of despair. Stay tuned for ways we will seek to do that here at St. Boniface and beyond, and together let us answer the call of Jubilee 2025.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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