December 2024 prayer intention
During December, the Pope asks us to pray that “the coming Church Jubilee Year 2025 strengthens us in our faith, helping us to recognize the risen Christ in the midst of our lives, transforming us into pilgrims of Christian hope”
In the letter for the Jubilee 2025, Pope Francis wrote,
"refuse to turn a blind eye to the tragedy of rampant poverty that prevents millions of men, women, young people and children from living in a manner worthy of our human dignity. Here I think in particular of the many refugees forced to abandon their native lands. May the voices of the poor be heard throughout this time of preparation for the Jubilee, which is meant to restore access to the fruits of the earth to everyone.....
In the realization that all of us are pilgrims on this earth, which the Lord has charged us to till and keep (cf. Gen 2:15), may we never fail, in the course of our sojourn, to contemplate the beauty of creation and care for our common home.....Growing numbers of men and women, including many young people and children, have come to realize that care for creation is an essential expression of our faith in God and our obedience to his will."
"One who has hope lives differently."
Pope Benedict XVI
What is Hope?
"Hope does not disappoint,
because God’s love has been
poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit
that has been given to us”
Rom 5:1-2
In 2013, Pope Francis wrote of 'Hope the hidden virtue', “Hope is not optimism, it is not the ability to look at the bright side of things and move forward”, nor is it merely a positive attitude. “This is all good, but it is not hope”.
He talks of Mary as the great icon of hope. "Mary “was a young girl” when she learned she would become a mother. How did she respond, he asked? “She goes and helps and sings the canticle of praise”. For, he explained, “when a woman is pregnant, she is a woman” but it is as though she has been transformed in her very depths because now “she is a mother”. And hope is similar: “it changes us within, it changes our attitudes”. Therefore, he said, “let us ask for the grace to be men and women of hope”.
"I plead with you - never, ever give up on hope,
never doubt,
never tire,
and never become discouraged.
Be not afraid."
Pope John Paul II
Hope does not disappoint
What we – all of us – need, then, is hope. Hope does not disappoint: let us never forget this. Hope is needed by the society in which we live, often caught up only in the present and incapable of looking to the future. Hope is needed by our age, caught up in an individualism that is frequently content merely to scrape along from day to day. Hope is needed by God’s creation, gravely damaged and disfigured by human selfishness. Hope is needed by those peoples and nations who look to the future with anxiety and fear. As injustice and arrogance persist, the poor are discarded, wars sow seeds of death, the least of our brothers and sisters remain at the bottom of the pile, and the dream of a fraternal world seems an illusion. Hope is needed by our young people, often confused and uncertain, yet desirous of living lives of happiness and fulfilment. Hope is needed by the elderly, no longer revered or listened to by a culture obsessed with efficiency and excess. Hope too is needed by the sick and those who suffer in body and spirit; they can find comfort in our closeness and care.
Furthermore, dear brothers and sisters, hope is needed by the Church, so 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, called to hold high the light of the Gospel, and sent forth to bring to all the fire that Jesus definitively brought to the world.
Each of us has need of hope in our lives, at times so weary and wounded, our hearts that thirst for truth, goodness and beauty, and our dreams that no darkness can dispel. Everything, within and outside of us, cries out for hope and continues to seek, even without knowing it, the closeness of God.
Saint Paul is a realist. He knows that life has its joys and sorrows, that love is tested amid trials, and that hope can falter in the face of suffering. Even so, he can write: “We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom 5:3-4).
"but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength,
they will soar as with eagle's wings;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and never grow tired."
Isaiah 40:31
Pilgrims of Christian hope
"Christian hope sustains the journey of our lives, even when the road ahead seems winding and exhausting. It opens our eyes to future possibilities whenever resignation or pessimism attempt to imprison us. It makes us see the promise of good at times when evil seems to prevail. Christian hope fills us with serenity when our hearts are burdened by sin and failure. It makes us dream of a new humanity and gives us courage in our efforts to build a fraternal and peaceful world, even when it seems barely worth the effort. Such is hope, the gift that the Lord bestowed on us in Baptism."
“May the Lord grant us the grace to rediscover hope,
to proclaim hope
and to build hope.”
Other than stated, quotes by Pope Francis
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