The article by Prof. Massaro R. published on the Blog of the Alphonsian Academy
The series on the keywords of the Jubilee 2025 continues with this post, conceived in a dialogic form: a first intervention by a teacher of the Alfonsiana Academy is followed by a second contribution written by a student. Third keyword: Hope – Post 1/2.
The Jubilee tradition has at least two origins. The first dates back to the Old Testament narratives and, in particular, to the norms contained in the book of Leviticus: “You shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim the liberation of the land for all its inhabitants; each of you shall return to his property and to his family” ( Lev 25:10). The Jubilee is the year of liberation, of hope, for every Jew; hope not only of being able to return free, but also of being able to regain the means necessary to maintain and protect one’s freedom. The second, however, as we well know, dates back to the last days of 1299 when a crowd of pilgrims, driven by a spontaneous popular movement and the spread of fear of the end of the world, gathered in Rome asking Boniface VIII for a form of forgiveness similar to that instituted a few years earlier, in 1294, by Celestine V. Thus, the pontiff, with the bull Antiquorum habet fida relatio, granted plenary indulgence to all those who crossed the doors of the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul Outside the Walls, giving them the certainty of liberation from the punishments linked to the sins committed and the hope of eternal life.
The connection of the jubilee with hope, therefore, dates back to a long time before the proclamation of the ordinary jubilee of 2025, dedicated to this theological virtue by Pope Francis with the bull Spes non confundit. If, in the jubilee of the Christian era, the emphasis is placed on hope in “eschatological” liberation, the Jewish tradition, instead, links hope to a precise time – the fiftieth year, precisely – as a time of liberation from all oppression and of return to the original equality desired by God.
The two visions, however, are not mutually exclusive. As Gaudium et Spes reminds us , for Christians “the expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for the work of this present earth, where that body of the new humanity is growing, which already manages to offer a certain prefiguration which foreshadows the new world” ( GS, n. 39). This means that Christian hope – which this jubilee invites us to deepen and live – does not distract us, with the promise of life above, from the questions of life here below. On the contrary, It makes us understand that it is the same life and that hoping is something very concrete: adopting the point of view of eternity, planting and making germinate in the hic et nunc the seeds of eternity and freedom that faith in the risen Lord has sown throughout history.
This is the reason why the Pontiff, in Spes non confundit, lists some “signs of hope” to be implemented during this Holy Year (nn. 7-15): rediscovering the signs of the times that the Lord offers us; working for peace; transmitting a positive vision of life; standing beside those who live in difficult conditions; taking care of migrants, young people, and the elderly.
Let us add – to Francis’ exhaustive list – a further sign-announcement of hope. Hope for the entire Church, in a complex time, which the Pope himself has defined as a “change of era”: for bishops, priests, men and women religious, often discouraged by the workload and difficulties of pastoral life, so that they may be freed from those deleterious forms of sacral supermanism; for lay men and women who still struggle – despite the numerous and prophetic attempts of the Pontiff in the various synodal assemblies – to have a voice and space in the Church and, in particular, for women, so that they may be freed from the tight chains of patriarchy and the community of Christ’s disciples may be ready to fight every systemic form of discrimination against women inside and outside the Church; for ecumenical dialogue, so that once all Christian confessions have been freed from the belief that they possess the only truth, it may have as its aim that of fulfilling Christ’s hope-filled prayer “that they may all be one” ( Jn 17:21); for all of us believers, so that only by bringing Christ’s message of hope and liberation can we free ourselves from that sad social irrelevance to which we have been relegated for having acted more like masters than as poor pilgrims of hope.
