Fr. M. Titus Mohan –
The Jubilee Year of Hope is now drawing to a close. In the silence charged with expectation on the night of Christmas 2024, the long Ordinary Jubilee Year of Hope began. From that night onward, millions of pilgrims from all over the world walked along Via della Conciliazione to experience the Jubilee. Many came from countries affected by war, violence, or persecution, such as Ukraine, Palestine, Nigeria, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Myanmar, and Haiti. Just days before the closing of the four Holy Doors, more than 32 million pilgrims had arrived in Rome from all parts of the world and from almost all Italian dioceses, as reported by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the Pope’s delegate for organizing Jubilee events. Pope Leo XIV will preside over the final rite closing the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on January 6, marking the conclusion of the Jubilee. The next Jubilee, rich in meaning, will be celebrated in 2033.
The Jubilee Never Ends
The Jubilee is not a project to be completed within a fixed time but a journey to be lived in every moment of life. The Holy Doors may be closed, yet our hearts must continue to beat to the rhythm of the Jubilee. Many crossed the sacred thresholds of Rome and our local cathedrals, but it is not enough merely to pass through holy doors. The true grace of the Jubilee is to return to daily life carrying hope in our steps, mercy in our hands, and renewal in our hearts. During this Jubilee Year, many spiritual and corporal works of mercy took place worldwide. In Rome alone, about 200 projects were carried out to make the city more welcoming, beautiful, and safe for everyone.
Among the many initiatives of the Jubilee Year, two events struck me most. One was the Church’s choice to place prison at its very heart: the opening of a Holy Door in Rebibbia, described as a “basilica of suffering,” was a powerful Gospel gesture. Hope begins where dignity is most wounded. The Jubilee closed with a Mass celebrated with thousands of detainees, as Pope Leo XIV placed the “people of prison” among the first recipients of grace. This reminded us that prison must not be a place of revenge but of responsibility, healing, and hope. The second was the Youth Jubilee, held from July 28 to August 3, 2025, which brought hundreds of thousands of young people from around the world to Rome for faith, prayer, and cultural exchange. The event included city-wide spiritual activities, dialogues in public spaces, and digital resources for pilgrims, culminating in massive gatherings with Pope Leo XIV at Tor Vergata.
Local Church Responded
In my diocese of Kuzhithurai, under the able guidance of Most Rev. Albert Anasthas, alongside spiritual renewal, many meaningful hope-giving initiatives took place during this Jubilee Year. Crores of rupees were spent on building houses for the poor, generously contributed by the faithful themselves. In Valanur Parish, a house was built for two elderly sisters, and electricity was provided; one of them is hearing-impaired and visually challenged. Madathattuvilai Parish has become an eye-donating village: in 2025 alone, 30 people donated their eyes, bringing the total number of donors in the village to 404. In Eethavilai Parish, through the Pudhuvasantham center for people struggling with alcohol addiction, a former alcoholic was rehabilitated and given a security job at St. Xavier’s Engineering College, while his wife received employment at Trinity School. Pension schemes for the elderly are being implemented in several parishes. In Irudhayapuram Parish, electricity was arranged for a poor Hindu family, and in Poottetri Parish, a shop was built to support a poor person’s livelihood. No doubt, many other good activities took place in dioceses worldwide. These works truly reflect the meaning of the Jubilee, as described in the Book of Leviticus 25. Now the question is: what is next?
What Is Next?
After this Jubilee, we may return to normal life, and it might be hard to see what has changed in us or in the world around us. One of the questions I have often asked myself in these final days of the year is: how can we keep hope alive in ourselves and in the world, despite all the chaos we see today? The many wars in the world, widespread poverty, mass migration, the fast rise of AI, and profound political and socio-economic changes have shaken our hope, repeatedly putting it to the test. How can we continue living with hope?
On one hand, hope is the inner force that keeps life moving forward. Without the belief that tomorrow can be better than today, not only public life but also our personal lives, families, communities, and vocations lose their meaning. We hope because we must – otherwise fatigue, fear, and resignation take over. On the other hand, hope can be wounded. In daily life, it is often postponed or manipulated not only by politics but by systems, promises, expectations, and even relationships that keep saying “wait,” “later,” or “things will change,” while nothing really does. When hope is repeatedly deferred, it slowly turns into disappointment. And when hope disappears, people do not become neutral; they become cynical, indifferent, or harsh. In such a climate, anything seems permissible because nothing seems worth believing in anymore.
For this reason, hope needs a critical and mature conscience. True hope does not deny suffering.
In our Indian context – marked by economic inequality, youth unemployment, migration, caste wounds, religious tensions, environmental suffering, and the daily struggle of ordinary families – hope cannot be naive. It must recognize reality, accept its complexity, and still dare to seek small but real paths forward. Human hope is born from lived experience. It grows when people take risks, remain faithful to values, and assume responsibility for their own lives and for others. In everyday life, this hope appears when parents continue to sacrifice for their children, when farmers sow again after loss, when young people keep studying despite uncertainty, and when religious communities continue to serve quietly without recognition. This hope does not promise miracles, but small, concrete, reversible improvements. It is the hope that allows perseverance, dialogue, compromise, and reform within families, institutions, and society.
Yet this human hope needs support. Left alone, it can easily become exhausted. This is where Christian hope becomes essential. Our hope is not grounded only in progress or success, but in God’s promise. The theological virtue of hope reminds us that the meaning of life goes beyond what we can measure or control. It teaches us that while our efforts matter deeply, they are not absolute. Life itself is “penultimate”: important, serious, demanding but not ultimate.
Hope Is Still Alive
They do not replace each other; they sustain one another. Christian hope does not give ready-made solutions for life’s problems, and human hope cannot offer salvation. But together they protect us from despair on one side and from illusion on the other. They help us live fully without turning success into an idol or failure into a verdict. Today we see a crisis of hope in many areas of life. People withdraw from public responsibility, from relationships, and from long-term commitments because they no longer see a future worth investing in. Life becomes technical, fast, and fragmented or emotional and reactive. Yet the Jubilee Year has reminded us that hope is still possible because it is deeper than circumstances.
The Jubilee did not solve all our problems, nor did it promise immediate change. But it reminded us why we live, serve, and believe. It brought back into focus forgotten values: dignity, mercy, responsibility toward future generations, and care for the weakest. It did not create “perfect Christians,” but it made it harder to live without humanity. Even now, as the Jubilee formally continues for us, its true work happens quietly. Hope is not an event; it is a virtue lived daily. It is deeply personal. It asks each of us honest questions: Why do I continue? What gives meaning to my effort? What helps me stand again after disappointment?
Hope is not success. It is fidelity to values, to people, to one’s calling. One can fail, be misunderstood, lose recognition, or see efforts undone, and still remain hopeful. This kind of hope is the strength to begin again without guarantees, to love without applause, to serve without certainty. It keeps life human. Christian hope, finally, is not heroic or spectacular. Jesus speaks of it through small signs such as a seed, yeast, a lost coin. So, hope grows in the ordinary – in silent prayer, shared meals, community support, and simple acts of solidarity. The Jubilee showed us that hope is never only individual. When one person is tired, another carries hope for them. Faith, liturgy, and shared prayer hold hope alive when individuals feel empty. In the end, hope is living while trying to change the world little by little, through faith and love. It does not remove suffering or simplify life, but it gives meaning to effort. This Jubilee has reminded me that real hope is still alive – not because everything is fine, but because God continues to walk with us. And that is enough to begin again, today.
——————
Fr. M. Titus Mohan, from the diocese of Kuzhithurai, now pursues his Doctoral research in Moral Theology, Milan.