The Archdiocese of Vancouver celebrated the opening of the 2025 Jubilee Year on Sunday with a solemn Pontifical Mass, held on the Feast of the Holy Family.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller gathered with about a dozen altar servers, deacons, and lay faithful outside Holy Rosary Cathedral before the Mass for a rite of blessing and prayer to mark the start of the Jubilee celebrations.
During his opening address, the Archbishop proclaimed, “Brothers and sisters, the mystery of the incarnation of our Saviour Jesus Christ, fostered in the communion of love of the Holy Family of Nazareth, is for us the ground of deep joy and certain hope. In fellowship with the Universal Church, as we celebrate the love of the Father that reveals itself in the flesh of the Word made man and in the sign of the Cross, anchor of salvation, we solemnly open the Jubilee Year for the Church of Vancouver.”
The Archbishop described the year ahead as a time for grace and renewal, saying, “This rite is for us the prelude to a rich experience of grace and mercy. We are ready always to respond to whoever asks the reason for the hope that is in us, especially in this time of war and disorder. May Christ, our peace and our hope, be our companion on the journey in this year of grace and consolation. May the Holy Spirit, who today begins this work both in us and with us, bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus.”
A lay reader read from Pope Francis’ Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee, Spes Non Confundit (Hope Does Not Disappoint), emphasizing the theme of hope for the Jubilee as proclaimed in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
“In the spirit of hope, the Apostle Paul addressed these words of encouragement to the Christian community of Rome. Hope is also the central message of the coming Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every 25 years. My thoughts turn to all those pilgrims of hope who will travel to Rome in order to experience the Holy Year, and to all those others who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches. For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ (cf. Jn 10:7, 9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere, and to all as ‘our hope’ (1 Tim 1:1),” the Bull reads.
The Pope’s Jubilee message highlights hope as a universal human experience. “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.”
He invited the faithful to “announce hope to the weary who lack the strength to carry on, to the lonely often oppressed by the bitterness of failure, and to all those who are brokenhearted. We are called to bring hope to those who are incarcerated, hope to the cold tents of the homeless, and hope to places desecrated by violence and war.”
Hope is needed not only by the world, he said, but also by the Church, “that when she feels wearied by her exertions and burdened by her frailty, she will always remember that as the Bride of Christ, she is loved with an eternal and faithful love. The Church is called to hold high the light of the Gospel and is sent forth to bring to all the fire that Jesus definitively brought to this world.”
He invited all in the Archdiocese, from the seriously committed to those who are questioning or have left their faith, to become “pilgrims of hope,” opening their hearts “to the joy that the Lord himself wishes to bestow on them during this year of Jubilee.”
