Reflection

Signposts on the Way
Señales en el Camino

By: Fr. Roger Keeler, JCD

The Jubilee Year of Hope?

Really?

Tell me, how are we supposed to be the “Pilgrims of Hope” Pope Francis asks us to be when every headline in today’s news is worse than they were yesterday? It seems as though we are living in times of uncertainty, of seeming disorder and confusion, where things are unpredictable and what was once stable constant, and unchanging evaporates in a flash. Confidence is crushed; trust is torn; tomorrow’s vision vanished and hope turned into helplessness.

There just doesn’t seem to be any way forward, no relief in sight. A seeming downward spiral into despair.

And, it’s Lent. Not exactly a forty-day period of unfettered joy! Ashes, penance, fasting, abstinence, sacrifice …

So just how are we supposed to live Lent 2025 in this Jubilee Year of Hope?>

In his message for the beginning of this Lent, the Holy Father points out that Lent is “the summons to conversion that God in his mercy addresses to all of us as individuals and as a community” (See: Message of the Holy Father Francis for Lent 2025).

Conversion is from the Latin con (with or together) +vertere (to turn or to bend) and is defined as a “radical and complete change in spirit, purpose, and direction of life” (See: conversion etymology - Search). Closely related to conversion is metanoia, a Greek word meaning “to change one’s mind; to repent” (See: Strong's Greek: 3341. μετάνοια (metanoia) -- Repentance).

So if we are called to a change in mind and spirit, just how are we going to do it? Pope Francis offers this advice: try to “interpret the events of history” in such a way that you can be inspired to commit to “justice and fraternity, [and] to care for our common home and in such a way that no one feels excluded.”

I can still hear my Mother: “It’s not all about you, Sweet Cheeks!” In other words “get out of your head and stop focusing on yourself!” Look around you and see the signs of hope that are everywhere: springs’ warmth is in the air, the trees are in bud, children laugh and play, the three grandpas are at their Starbucks table every morning regaling one another with their memories, the Life Teen liturgy on Sunday evening was packed with the energy of adolescence, and Mobile Loaves and Fishes delivered how many meals this past week? Only the Lord knows.

And undergirding all of this is our faith in the Risen Christ who sustains us “in the hope that does not disappoint (Rom. 5/5). So we recall the Psalmist from the Liturgy for the First Sunday of Lent: “You [we!] who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.’”