Cardinal Pizzaballa inaugurates Holy Year 2025: Holy Land needs the Jubilee of Hope

Christians in the Holy Land need the spiritual renewal that the Jubilee of Hope can offer them, said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, when inaugurating the Holy Year 2025 in the Basilica of the Annunciation, in Nazareth.

Like the bishops of the dioceses of the rest of the world, yesterday the cardinal began the Jubilee 2025 in the diocese of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which includes Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Cyprus.

To this end, Cardinal Pizzaballa presided over the entry of the cross accompanied by the Maronite archbishop of Haifa and the Holy Land, Moussa Hage; and the Greek Melkite archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and Galilee, Youssef Matta.

This gesture was highlighted by the Custody of the Holy Land, which in its website He noted that it has been “a way to emphasize the unity between the various Catholic rites that live in the Holy Land.”

During the ceremony, some passages from the bull were also read. Hope is not confused (hope does not disappoint), with which Pope Francis called for the ordinary Jubilee, which he inaugurated on December 24 with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.

In his homily, quoted by SIR agencythe cardinal referred to the war that has hit the region since the beginning of October 2023, of which “we are all prisoners,” also “of its consequences.” “Hate, resentment and fear keep us stuck in relationships, in mutual trust,” he said.

This closure in our own fears, he added, “does not allow us to have courage, to have a look of trust and therefore also of hope towards others, towards the future, towards God, as the One who is capable of leading life even where everything It seems dead and finished.”

Cardinal Pizzaballa indicated that although it is “very difficult to talk about hope” when everything around us talks about war and poverty, he recalled that hope requires faith in the Lord.

“Faith in God,” he explained, “also means having a trusting gaze toward one’s neighbor, which is why for the believer, the gaze toward one’s neighbor remains open to trust, despite the inevitable difficulties present in every human relationship.”

Furthermore, he indicated that hope also needs patience, because otherwise it will only be “a harsh resignation in the face of a destiny against which it makes no sense to fight.”

“Hope without patience is a deception, because it deceives us into thinking that we can obtain what we want without the effort of living. Hope requires, therefore, also knowing how to wait.”

“We want peace now, immediately. We want an end to the pain now. We want the solution to our problems now and we are not resigned to the idea that, on the contrary, we must wait, patiently, but without resigning ourselves,” he indicated.

“Hope,” he reiterated, “also requires knowing how to trust others, in time and patience, with the fruit of one’s own work.”

From here arises the need for the Jubilee, he explained, “so that God cancels our debts, so that he removes from our shoulders and our hearts the unbearable weight of our sins, our fears, so that he returns the light to our eyes, to see. the fulfillment of his Kingdom, which is not of this world, but which gives meaning to our being in the world.”

“We truly need this spiritual renewal that restores to our homes and communities confidence in the work of God and with it the active hope of being able to one day achieve the peace that we all desire,” he stated.