By Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing, OFM
Celebrating God’s presence with us: Isn’t it strange? Isn’t God everywhere and always among us? Why do we need a whole year to celebrate his presence? The answer lies in our human needs. Since we exist in time and space, we require visible actions to experience the invisible divine. The jubilee every 25 years is one such large-scale action, a bit like the sales and discounts that some shopping malls offer at certain times of the year to entice people to spend money. Of course, what the Church promotes are spiritual things—concrete actions that allow us to realise that God is with us, such as pilgrimage, which symbolises our journey towards God, or crossing the Holy Door, which symbolises entering into his presence, and so on.
Celebrating God’s love for us: God is love, and if God is with us, that means that we are loved by him. While God’s love for us is fully revealed to us in the crucified Jesus, we often forget and need to be reminded again and again of this unchanging love in different ways and at different times. How can we be sure that we really remember? It is when we are willing to share our love with others. That is why, in his papal bull for the jubilee year, the Holy Father invites us to care for the poor and disadvantaged among us. To share love is to celebrate!
Celebrating the fact that we are pilgrims: We have our feet in the world, but our eyes are on heaven; we are in the midst of life, but we always have a direction; we care for the world, but not only in this life; we are willing to work hard to move forward, and we are never complacent. All these are not because we are superior in any way, but simply because God has chosen to be our shepherd, guide and father. His love attracts us and makes us pilgrims to him, which is worth celebrating!
Celebrating the hope we have: In the crucified Jesus we see how terrible human sin is, but at the same time we see the abundance of God’s love which is far beyond sin. Love inspires hope, and infinite love generates infinite hope. During the Jubilee Year, we can experience the richness of God’s love by receiving a plenary indulgence which fills us with hope.
In the papal bull, Pope Francis invites us to “recognise the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence.” He calls us to be “signs of hope”, especially for children, youth, the elderly, prisoners, the sick, the poor, refugees and the created world.
Isn’t it worth celebrating that we have been chosen for such a sacred mission?
