The Holy Year 2025 is dedicated to the virtue of hope. One of the three great virtues (Faith, Hope and Love), Hope is probably the virtue that is referred to the least. For quite a while in the history of the Church every twenty-five years a Holy Year is celebrated. Pope Francis has declared 2025 as a Holy Year with the central theme being hope. The message announcing the year has the heading: ’Hope will not disappoint’, a quote from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans (5:5). In paragraph 6 of the document Pope Francis says: “Sustained by this great tradition, and certain that the Jubilee Year will be for the entire Church a lively experience of grace and hope, I hereby decree that the Holy Door of the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican will be opened on 24 December 2024, thus inaugurating the Ordinary Jubilee” and further down in n.6 he says: “The Ordinary Jubilee will conclude with the closing of the Holy Door in the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican on 6 January 2026, the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. During the Holy Year, may the light of Christian hope illumine every man and woman, as a message of God’s love addressed to all! And may the Church bear faithful witness to this message in every part of the world!”.
In n.1 of the document Pope Francis writes: “Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt. Often, we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness. For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope. God’s word helps us find reasons for that hope.”