September 28, 2025 - Pastor Message
October 13, 2025JUBILEE 2025 GAUDIUM ET SPES
JUBILEE 2025
GAUDIUM ET SPES
“The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well” (Gaudium et spes, 1).
We conclude our Jubilee 2025 journey through the constitutions of Vatican Council II with Gaudium et Spes [GS], the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, promulgated December 7, 1965. This seminal document proclaims what has become known as the “social gospel”, or the gospel of Christ as it applies to the social circumstances of our modern times. In effect, it spells out the moral teachings of the gospel as we navigate the rocky shoals of contemporary life.
As such, it is offered, not only to Christians, but to all the world. Moral truths apply to all people, not only to those of a particular religious faith. That is the meaning of truth, which we seem to have forgotten, but of which GS reminds us. And so the Church enters into dialogue with the world in this document, sharing the timeless truth of the gospel while listening to the new challenges of the modern world.
And what are the challenges of the modern world? GS summarizes them thus: “In no other age has humanity enjoyed such an abundance of wealth, resources, and economic well-being; and yet a huge proportion of the people of the world is plagued by hunger and extreme need while countless numbers are totally illiterate. At no time have people had such a keen sense of freedom, only to be faced by new forms of social and psychological slavery. The world is keenly aware of its unity and of mutual interdependence in essential solidarity, but at the same time it is split into bitterly opposing camps. We have not yet seen the last of bitter political, social, and economic hostility, and racial and ideological antagonism, nor are we free from the spectre of a war of total destruction. If there is a growing exchange of ideas, there is still widespread disagreement in competing ideologies about the meaning of the words which express our key concepts. There is lastly a painstaking search for a better material world, without a spiritual advancement” (GS, 4).
Those words were promulgated in 1965, sixty years ago, yet they remain just as true today as they were back then. My hope is that by reflecting on GS today, we can learn more about ourselves, about the gospel, and about how to change the narrative, rewriting our story today to be more in line with the story of Christ, and thus lead all people to the kingdom he lived, died, and rose to bring about.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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