Dear Friends,
Welcome to the end of another church year. Today is the final Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King. Next Sunday, we begin a new liturgical year with the First Sunday of Advent. This new year is also a special year because every twenty-five years the Church celebrates a Jubilee Year or Holy Year. This year, Pope Francis has asked us to focus on hope as the central message of the Jubilee.
In his Bull announcing the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis said, By his perennial presence in the life of the pilgrim Church, the Holy Spirit illumines all believers with the light of hope. He keeps that light burning, like an ever-burning lamp, to sustain and invigorate our lives. Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or the sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Here we see the reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials: founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life.
Francis goes on to say, Pilgrimage is of course a fundamental element of every Jubilee event. Setting out on a journey is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life. A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life. In the coming year, pilgrims of hope will surely travel the ancient and more modern routes in order to experience the Jubilee to the full. In Rome itself, along with the usual visits to the catacombs and the Seven Churches, other itineraries of faith will be proposed. Journeying from one country to another as if borders no longer mattered, and passing from one city to another in contemplating the beauty of creation and masterpieces of art, we learn to treasure the richness of different experiences and cultures, and are inspired to lift up that beauty, in prayer, to God, in thanksgiving for his wondrous works. The Jubilee Churches along the pilgrimage routes and in the city of Rome can serve as oases of spirituality and places of rest on the pilgrimage of faith, where we can drink from the wellsprings of hope, above all by approaching the sacrament of Reconciliation, the essential starting-point of any true journey of conversion.
We will begin the Jubilee at Cabrini with that theme of hope during the Advent Season. Each Sunday we will be inviting you to fill out a small card that will be put in the collection and offered to God. The card will be a personal testament to hope. We will also be collecting items needed by Omaha Welcomes the Stranger each week. Our sharing with them will help them find hope. The item for each week can be found in the bulletin.
The Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica will be opened on December 24th and will be closed on January 6, 2026. We are quickly approaching the two thousandth anniversary of the redemption won by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. May this Holy Year help prepare our hearts for Jesus as we bear faithful witness to God’s message of love.
Peace,
Fr. Damian