Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year: Four Ways to Be a “Pilgrim of Hope” in Africa

Bishop Christian Carlassare of South Sudan’s Catholic Diocese of Bentiu shares how spiritually uplifting the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year is to be. “It would be a beautiful possibility to go to Rome to strengthen one’s faith, and to also get graces of the Jubilee comprising the forgiveness of sin.”

Bishop Carlassare however acknowledges that not everyone will be able to travel to Rome in person for the 2025 Jubilee Year owing to the limitations related to distance and finances. Others, he says, may experience challenges obtaining travel documents to Rome.

“These days, it isn’t easy to get a visa to travel to Rome. The Holy See may try to strike an agreement with the government of Italy to facilitate the acquisition of visa but still, it will not be possible for many people”, the Italian-born member of the Comboni Missionaries has told ACI Africa.

To be a pilgrim of hope, however, does not mean that one must go to Rome, he said in the Tuesday, December 17 interview, and added, “We can be pilgrims of hope wherever we are.”

Bishop Carlassare explained the keywords that are unique to the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year and provided tips on how to be fully immersed in the “Pilgrimage of Hope” from wherever one will be in Africa.

1) Pray…see God wherever you will be

The first keyword about the upcoming Jubilee Year is pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is a journey. Not merely a physical journey, but most of all a spiritual journey to encounter the Lord. Many people travel but it doesn’t mean that they are on pilgrimage. Many people go to Rome, admire the beauty of the city, the architecture, the pictures, the sculptures, the history. But it doesn’t mean that just because they are in Rome, they have a personal encounter with the Lord. 

The first way to be a pilgrim, therefore, is prayer, and especially contemplation. That means being able to see God who is everywhere and to listen to His message in the life events that we experience. We can be in our homes yet set off on a journey because we are journeying with the Lord and with the signs of times and the call that the Lord has for each one of us.

2) Protect the dignity of life in all its stages

The second keyword that is specific to the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year is hope. Hope is a theological virtue. It is a gift from God. But it is also an attitude we must learn to practice by strengthening our faith and love because hope is rooted in faith, and is nurtured in love. 

We belong to God, and we are part of a greater plan of salvation. How do we look to the world? Sometimes we may live without aim, without hope. We also may be afraid and confused but hope tells us that we should not be afraid to live our vocations wherever we are. 

The second way to be pilgrims of hope is to offer our unique contribution to the world. We can do this when we answer to the call of God. When we are deeply the person we have been created to be with our specific gifts, with our values, with our dreams and desires, and when we are not afraid to express ourselves. 

Also, when we are going against the grain of society that dehumanizes people; society that would not recognize the dignity and the gifts of the very person. The second way to be part of this pilgrimage, therefore, is by living our vocations and protecting the dignity of life in all its stages.

I reiterate the words of St. Catherine of Sienna that if you are fully who you are, you would set the world in flames. You would enlighten the world with the fire of love, of hope and faith.

Sometimes we are afraid of this power that is within us, the power of God. We are afraid and so, we hide. The Jubilee is an encouragement of living the vocation of who truly are, because nobody can really replace each one of us in the mission that God has given us. 

Every life is unique, and nobody can perform in place of the other what hasn’t been designed for them to do. This Jubilee is a time of renewal for each person, a time for personal conversion for each person, and a time of personal ‘Yes’ to the Lord and to the situations in which we are living.

3) Mending broken relationships

The third keyword that we must explain is the Holy Door. We know that the Holy Father will open the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Cathedral, and later in the other Basilicas.

In our Diocese, we will also open the Holy Door. The Holy Door represents a passage that will allow us to enter the Church from the towns and villages where we live. This represents a passage to new life, a passage to the life of faith, the life of Christian community. 

The third way to be a pilgrim of hope, therefore, is conversion that is experienced in the Sacrament of reconciliation. During this year, therefore, we can approach this Sacrament and live it deeply as a time of personal conversion. 

When we experience the merciful love of God, then our lives are really changed. We reconcile with God, we reconcile also with ourselves, with who we are, with our past mistakes, and we look at the future with new hope. But we also reconcile with our brothers and sisters, especially those with whom we have broken relationships, or relationships that still need healing.

4) Community activities… Make the environment more liveable

The fourth word is community. Every pilgrimage is communitarian. I never heard of pilgrimages where a single person did it. It is usually a movement of a group of people united by faith. A communitarian pilgrimage urges us to rediscover the community, and the beauty to journey together; the community where we live. 

Thus, the fourth way to be pilgrims of hope is to commit ourselves in our local communities so that we don’t journey alone. We must advance together with the communitarian commitment. This is important in our parishes, in our chapels, in our small Christian communities, and in our neighbourhoods.

Let us take up some commitments for the god of the society where we live. Let us make a better future for our children, where they can hope for something better through education, and through a nice community living which is the most important element for the growth of a balanced society.

We can also think about the commitment to the integrity of creation. In a society where we see environmental degradation, we should improve our surroundings and make them more liveable. With all these commitments, I think we can live as pilgrims of hope this Jubilee Year 2025, Bishop Carlassare shared with ACI Africa.

Pope Francis announced the start of a Year of Prayer on January 21 in preparation for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, the second in his Pontificate after the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015.

The Holy Father said the 2025 Jubilee Year will be “a year dedicated to rediscovering the great value and absolute need for prayer in one’s personal life, in the life of the Church, and in the world.”

Months later, on the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ on May 9, the Holy Father solemnly proclaimed the upcoming Jubilee Year 2025 at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica, during which he delivered the Bull of Indiction of the planned Jubilee, “Spes non confundit” (Hope does not disappoint).

The Jubilee Year provides the people of God across the globe an opportunity to participate in various planned jubilee events at the Vatican and in their respective Episcopal Sees and Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL).

Agnes Aineah – ACI Africa