Step into the Holy Year with Pope Francis
Francesco performs the ritual that marks the beginning of the Holy Year. Leading the way through the Saint Peter’s gate, he is followed by over 50 pilgrims from around the world dressed in traditional attire. Approximately 25,000 people gather in the Square, with another 6,000 inside the Basilica, where the Pontiff celebrates the Christmas Eve Mass. In his sermon, he calls for a transformation in a world plagued by poverty, slavery, and conflicts, urging us to think about children caught in crossfires and bombs raining down on schools and hospitals.
Salvatore Cernuzio – Vatican City
In silence, on a wheelchair, head bowed in prayer with a serene expression. The bronze valves echo twice amidst the tiles narrating the story of salvation. The Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica swings open, and Pope Francis is the first to cross it.
The Jubilee begins. The Holy Year of hope commences. A time of indulgence, forgiveness, rebirth, and renewal. A time to “bring hope where it has been lost.”
READ THE FULL TEXT OF POPE FRANCIS’ HOMILY HERE
Where life is wounded, in shattered hopes, broken dreams, and shattered hearts; in the weariness of those who can’t go on, in the bitter loneliness of the defeated, in the suffering that ravages the soul; in the long, empty days of prisoners, in the tight, cold rooms of the poor, in places desecrated by war and violence.
“Pilgrims of Hope” from Every Corner of the World
The moment is solemn. The bells ring as Francesco walks slowly. The faithful – 25,000 outside the Square following the celebration on giant screens, around 6,000 inside St. Peter’s – who have been waiting for the Pope in prayer, remain silent. They join the Schola Cantorum in singing the entrance hymn that resonates in the atrium and outside.
Fifty-four pilgrims of different nationalities, including from China, Iran, and Oceania, pass through the Holy Door after the Pope. Adorned in feathered headdresses, flower garlands, sombreros, turbans, they line up to cross the threshold that the Pontiff will close on January 6, 2026. They are the first “pilgrims of hope,” accompanied by cardinals, bishops, concelebrants, representatives of other Christian religions, authorities including the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, and the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The Pain of Wars
“May the door of hope be opened to every man and woman… that does not disappoint,” proclaims Francesco during the ritual in the Basilica’s atrium. His face is serious, but his eyes reveal emotion. This is his second Jubilee, following the extraordinary one convened in 2016 to remind the world of the importance of Mercy. This is the XXVII ordinary Holy Year of the Catholic Church, over a thousand years since the first one, twenty-five years after the “great Jubilee” of St. John Paul II that ushered the Church into the new millennium. Now, an eighty-eight-year-old Pope, “from the end of the world,” aims to inject hope into a world afflicted like never before in recent decades by crises, violence, and wars forcing us to witness dramatic scenes like “children shot” or “bombs on schools and hospitals,” as Francesco denounces – extemporaneously – in the subsequent Christmas Eve Mass homily.
This is the night when the door of hope swings open to the world; this is the night when God says to each one: there is hope for you too! There is hope for each of us. But do not forget, sisters and brothers, that God forgives everything, God always forgives.
Hope is a Promise, Not a Happy Ending
The “Christian hope” gifted during the jubilee is “not a happy ending to passively await,” “not the happy ending of a movie,” but “the promise of the Lord to be embraced here and now, in this suffering earth,” says the Pope in a packed Basilica adorned with flowers, with the statue of the Mother of Hope displayed at the altar. This hope is “something else”; it demands that we move “without delay” towards God. “To us, disciples of the Lord, it is asked to rediscover in Him our greatest hope, and then to bring it without delay, as pilgrims of light in the darkness of the world.”
“Hope is not dead, hope is alive, and it envelops our lives forever!”
Transforming the World
“Brothers and sisters, this is the Jubilee, this is the time of hope!” exclaims Pope Francesco. The Holy Year “invites us to rediscover the joy of encountering the Lord, calls us to spiritual renewal, and engages us in transforming the world, so that it truly becomes a jubilant time: for our Mother Earth, marred by profit-driven logic; for the poorest countries burdened by unjust debts; for all those trapped in old and new forms of slavery.”
“Without Delay”
The Pope urges us to embark on the journey “without delay” to “rediscover lost hope, renew it within us, sow it in the desolations of our time and our world.” Many desolations: “Think of the wars,” says the Pope. “Do not delay,” “do not fall back on habits,” “do not linger in mediocrity and laziness,” he exhorts. Hope “asks us to become pilgrims in search of truth, tireless dreamers, men and women who are stirred by God’s dream, the dream of a new world, where peace and justice reign.”
The hope that arises on this night does not tolerate the inertia of the sedentary and the laziness of those who settle into their comforts, many of us are in danger of settling into our comforts. Hope does not allow for the false prudence of those who do not take risks for fear of compromising themselves and the selfish calculations of those who only think of themselves; it is incompatible with the quiet living of those who do not speak out against evil and injustices carried out on the backs of the poorest.
“Audacity,” “responsibility,” “compassion,” are the paths indicated by the Bishop of Rome in this special time, starting from this night when the “holy door” of God’s heart opens: “With Him – the Pope concludes – joy flourishes, life changes.” With Him “hope does not disappoint.”
At the Basilica’s Nativity Scene
After the Mass, the Pope, accompanied by a group of children from different nationalities, visits the nativity scene inside the Basilica to place the statue of Baby Jesus in the grotto. He spends a moment in prayer before the nativity, encouraging everyone to look at it as a reference for life. Then, he walks through the central nave to greet the two wings of faithful.
