Bishop opens 'Holy Year' with call for 'hope'
Shrewsbury's Catholic Bishop has formally opened the 2025 'Jubilee Year of Hope' in the diocese.
The opening Mass, led by The Rev Mark Davies at Shrewsbury Cathedral on Sunday, December 29, follows the opening of the Jubilee, or Holy, Year, by Pope Francis on Christmas Eve in Rome.
During the ceremony the Pope opened a “Holy Door” at St Peter’s Basilica through which millions of pilgrims will pass in 2025.
A Jubilee Year is celebrated by the Catholic Church every 25 years and is intended to offer renewed opportunities for people to seek forgiveness for their sins, conversion of life and reconciliation with their neighbour.
Pope Francis has asked that the Jubilee 2025 is focused on the virtue of “hope”.
The Jubilee will see tens of millions travel on pilgrimage to Rome or undertake more local pilgrimages to the cathedral or specially designated churches.
The Jubilee Year was formally opened by Bishop Davies at Shrewsbury Cathedral on Sunday and he will designate Saint Joseph’s Eucharistic Shrine in Stockport as the second place of pilgrimage in the Shrewsbury Diocese on Sunday, January 12.
In a pastoral letter to all the parishes and communities of the Diocese, marking the opening of the Holy Year 2025, Bishop Davies described the Jubilee as a “moment of grace” which he said offers renewed hope as we journey through the 21st Century striving for the one goal of Heaven.
He said: “This hope does not lead us to care less about our present lives or this passing world, rather it leads us to care more, much more! The fact that this world is the way to another, ‘the life of the world to come’, charges the whole of our lives with new purpose.
“Pope Francis gives practical examples of how this supernatural hope opens the door to see our lives and our world anew. This, he writes, enables us to untiringly seek peace in a world threatened by war and conflict; to be open to the gift of life in countries witnessing an alarming decline in the birth rate, since the desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters is born of hope; this same hope brings us closer to the sick and the elderly and helps us see in a new light the plight of the poor and most vulnerable, of prisoners, exiles and refugees.
“The hope we have received, insists Pope Francis, leads us to forgive others, for while forgiveness cannot change what happened in the past ‘it can allow us to change the future and live different lives, free of anger’.”
