Francesco performs the ritual that marks the beginning of the Holy Year. He is the first to pass through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s, followed by over 50 pilgrims from every corner of the world in traditional attire. There are about 25,000 people in the Square, with another 6,000 inside the Basilica where the Pontiff celebrates the Christmas Eve Mass. In his homily, he urges to “transform” a world plagued by poverty, slavery, and conflicts, mentioning children being shot and bombs hitting schools and hospitals.

By: Salvatore Cernuzio – Vatican News
Published on:
December 25, 2024

In silence, on a wheelchair, head bowed in prayer and with a solemn expression. Two strikes on the bronze doors amidst the tiles depicting the history 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 begins. The time of indulgences, forgiveness, rebirth, and renewal begins. The time to “bring hope where it has been lost.”

Where life is wounded, in dashed hopes, shattered dreams, heartbreaks; in the weariness of those who can’t go on, the bitter loneliness of the defeated, the soul-digging suffering; in the long, empty days of prisoners, 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 toll as Francis walks slowly. The faithful – 25,000 outside the Square following the celebration on big screens, about 6,000 inside St. Peter’s – who have been waiting for the Pope with prayers remain silent. They join the Schola Cantorum in singing the entrance hymn echoing in the atrium and outside.

Fifty-four pilgrims of different nationalities, even from China, Iran, and Oceania, pass through the Holy Door after the Pope. They wear feathered headdresses, flower headbands, sombreros, turbans, lining up to cross the threshold that the Pontiff will close on January 6, 2026. They are the first “pilgrims of hope,” along with cardinals, bishops, concelebrants, representatives of other Christian denominations, and authorities including the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The pain of wars

“May the door of hope be opened to every man and woman… that does not disappoint,” Francis proclaims during the ritual in the Basilica’s atrium. His face is serious, but his eyes show emotion. This is his second Jubilee, after the extraordinary one in 2016 to remind the world of the importance of Mercy. This is the 27th ordinary Holy Year of the Catholic Church, over a thousand years after the first, twenty-five years after St. John Paul II’s “great Jubilee” that ushered the Church into the new millennium. Now, an eighty-eight-year-old Pope, “coming from the ends of the earth,” wants to inject hope into a world afflicted as never before in decades by crises, violence, and wars forcing us to witness dramatic scenes like “children being shot” or “bombs on schools and hospitals,” as Francis denounces – off the cuff – in the homily of the subsequent Christmas Eve Mass.

This is the night when the door of hope opens to the world; this is the night when God tells each one: there is hope for you too! There is hope for each of us. But remember, sisters and brothers, that God forgives everything, God forgives always.

Hope is a promise, not a happy ending

The “Christian hope” that is bestowed in the Jubilee time “is not a happy ending to passively wait for,” “it is not the happy ending of a movie,” but “the promise of the Lord to accept here and now, in this suffering and groaning earth,” says the Pope in a packed Basilica, adorned with flowers, where the statue of the Mother of Hope is displayed at the altar. This hope is “something else”; it requires us to move “without delay” towards God. “To us disciples of the Lord, it is asked to find in Him our greatest hope, and then to carry 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 Francis. The Holy Year “invites us to rediscover the joy of meeting the Lord, calls us to spiritual renewal, and engages us in transforming the world, so that it truly becomes a jubilee time: for our Mother Earth, marred by profit logic; for the poorest countries burdened by unjust debts; for all those imprisoned by old and new slaveries.”

“Without delay”

The Pope urges us to set out “without delay” so we can “rediscover the lost hope, renew it within us, sow it in the desolations of our time and world.” Many desolations: “Think of the wars,” says the Pope. “Do not delay,” “do not fall into habits,” “do not linger in mediocrity and laziness,” he exhorts. Hope “asks us to be pilgrims in search of truth, tireless dreamers, men and women who are disturbed 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 laziness of the sedentary and the inertia of those who settle into their comforts, and many of us are in danger of settling into our comforts. Hope does not allow the false prudence of those who do not speak out for fear of compromising themselves and the selfishness of those who only think of themselves; it is incompatible with the quiet life of those who do not raise their voices against evil and injustices inflicted on the poorest.

“Boldness,” “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 – concludes the Pope – joy blossoms, life changes.”