Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Jan. 26, 2025. Gospel of St. Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21. Theme: A Jubilee of Hope!
The Holy Father, Pope Francis, has declared 2025 to be a special Holy Year called the Jubilee of Hope. How appropriate it is, then, that in our Gospel today Jesus also announced the start of a Jubilee when He told the congregation in the Nazareth synagogue that He was initiating “a year acceptable to the Lord”. In ancient Judaism, a Jubilee was a special year and a joyful occasion when slaves were to be set free, debts were to be forgiven, and confiscated lands were to be returned to their rightful owners.
However, Jesus was transforming it into a new kind of Jubilee. It wouldn’t be about the restoration of land but rather about the restoration of sight to the blind and health to the sick. It wouldn’t be concerned with eliminating financial loans but on the forgiveness of the debt of sin. And Jesus’ Jubilee would not focus on the return of property but rather on the return of people back to a right relationship with God and one another. In addition, Jesus’ New Jubilee wouldn’t be confined to any particular time or people or place. It would be for anyone anywhere who desires peace of heart on earth and eternal life in Heaven.
In declaring the Jubilee of 2025, Pope Francis wants us to realize that the Lord can and will do for us today these very same wonderful things that He did for others during His public ministry. The only thing that can stop this from happening in our own lives is us, that is, our own lack of trust in Him. You might recall that in the Gospels whenever Jesus works a miracle and heals someone He always praises their faith, that is, the expectant hope that they have in His power and willingness to help them. It is this kind of faith that is born of hope which brings about their cure.
And so for the very reason of building up our confidence in Jesus, the Holy Father has dedicated this special year to the virtue of hope. Hope is a spiritual power that is infused into us at our Baptism along with the virtues of faith and charity. These three divine gifts form a kind of packaged deal, so to speak, that are given to us so that we can live a truly Christian life as God’s adopted children.
I think we all know that the virtue of faith means that we believe in God and all that He has revealed to us. And I think we would all agree that the virtue of charity is what empowers us to love God and express this love by the way we treat others.
But what about Christian hope? What exactly is it? Coming up with the answer tends to be a challenge for many people. I think the best way to define it is to first of all say that it is not the kind of hope that we usually talk about in our everyday language. You see, we use hope as an expression for something that we would like to happen, that we wish would happen, but aren’t really sure if it will or not. This kind of hope is full of uncertainty. It gives us no assurance whatsoever but leaves us wondering, hanging in mid air.
But Christian hope, on the other hand, is quite the opposite! It’s the firm conviction that God will always be faithful to His Word. And so we expect, and not simply just wish, that what He says will happen because we know Him to be a Father Who always keeps His promises. Christian hope then can be defined as confident expectation and trust in the Word of God. And the ultimate promise that we confidently expect to be kept is that of our eternal salvation, that is, an existence marked by joy and glory with God and one another in Heaven.
But even before then, while we still journey through life here on planet Earth, the virtue of hope comes to our aid. It enables us to persevere through thick and thin, confident in God’s Word which says that all things will ultimately work out for the good of those who trust in Him. Hope buoys us up with the promise of Jesus Who said that He would be with us always and this can help us to not give into worry, temptation and discouragement. So, even if the world around us seems increasingly evil. Even if some of the leadership of the Church seems rampant with corruption. Even if our personal lives are experiencing some sort of turmoil in the present or uncertainty about the future, Christian hope can still continue to shine brightly within us! It assures us that life is worth living and that what we may be going through right now is temporary and will pass.
Now, this kind of hope isn’t at all the same thing as being optimistic or exercising “the power of positive thinking”. Those things are based on undependable and fallible human effort. Christian hope, on the other hand, is firmly rooted in God and is an actual supernatural power that always resides within us. We already possess it. We just need to remember this and that it can be activated at any time by faith and prayer. And so to this end, Pope Francis urges us to say to ourselves, “I have hope, because God walks with me and holds my hand. God does not leave me to myself. The Lord Jesus has conquered evil and has opened the path of life for me.”
Just as the cross is the symbol for faith and a heart is the symbol of love, so the anchor has become the symbol for hope. This is because God’s Word in the Letter to the Hebrews says, “We have been given hope as a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.” (Heb. 6:19) This means that just as an anchor safely holds a ship secure during a violent storm, so our trust in Christ can give us stability in times of turbulence and difficulty. With this anchor of hope to ground us, we can face any adversity because another passage of the Word of God from the Letter to the Philippians says, “I have learned that anywhere and at any time I can be content…for I have the strength to face all things by the power of Christ living in me.” (Phil. 4:12-13)
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