As 2024 comes to an end, there are plenty of reasons for people to lose hope: those many millions of people in our country trapped in chronic poverty and destitution; or the many people caught up in the vicious wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Sudan, to name a few.
While we are called to be alive to injustice and suffering and to respond by the grace of God to act to bring about a better world, we are also mindful of the good news in the world, all the places where God’s Spirit is breaking through to build bonds of friendship and to bring hope.
As Pope Francis said in Spes in Confundit, “We need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence. The signs of the times, which include the yearning of human hearts in need of God’s saving presence, ought to become signs of hope” (#7).
As Christians, we are called to be signs of hope in our world. Not the willed optimism that insists that things will get better, in the face of the all the evidence. Hope, in the Christian tradition, is a virtue, a habitual way of looking at the world rooted in faith and inspired by love. Again, in Spes in Confundit, the Holy Father says, “Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love” (#3).
The member charities of Caritas Social Action Network – some 50 Catholic charities – are all bringers of hope to their own communities. Working with people who experience a wide range of needs – people who are homeless, or in prison, or seeking asylum, or trapped in material or relational poverty – they commit themselves everyday to the work of building up God’s kingdom of peace, love and justice.
On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis will open the Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and begin the Year of Jubilee 2025. The Holy Year, celebrated every twenty five years, is an occasion of grace, an opportunity to renew our own commitment to Christ and to renew society, to make it more just, more in conformity to God’s vision for humanity. On our website, you’ll see some of the work we’re planning to do for the Jubilee Year: https://www.csan.org.uk/jubilee-2025/.
We’ve been working in partnership with our colleagues at the Catholic Education Service and CAFOD on Jubilee for Schools. We’ll be launching that on Friday 24 January. We’ll be inviting schools and their local parishes to make a Jubilee Pledge to work for social justice in their community. For more information on Jubilee for Schools, please visit: https://cafod.org.uk/jubilee-schools
From us all at the team at CSAN, wishing you a blessed Season of Christmas and a hopeful start to 2025.
