Editorial, Fides 6/2024, p. 2. December 5, 2024.
First, a greeting to all Fides readers: On the adjacent page, you will find more information about the renewal of the Fides magazine and its website, as well as instructions in case the magazine has been delivered to the wrong address or contains incorrect information. Hopefully, there isn’t much to correct.
Hope does not disappoint. Pope Francis assures us of this in his Jubilee Year bull Spes non confundit [here in English and other major languages (Visit an external site. The link opens in a new tab.)], which is available in parishes or can also be read online. In it, he calls us to be patient, to step off the fast-paced train of the modern world so that we may once again “have time to meet one another.” Hurry “harms people”; it “leads to impatience, anxiety, unnecessary violence, dissatisfaction, and selfishness.” We likely recognize these traits in much of our busy daily tasks.
The Holy Father calls us all to look at “creation in awe.” Faced with this wondrous, beautiful, and vast work of God, we can all see how limited even our greatest accomplishments and most impressive achievements are when viewed from the Creator’s perspective, where we ourselves are not at the center but rather participants in a reality that feels timeless.
At the same time, however, this world, with all its events and occurrences, touches each of us directly and without intermediaries – we are part of it and in its midst. We wish to influence it and hope to achieve something ever better, more beautiful, and more peaceful.
The fulfillment of Christian hope does not, of course, mean the realization of every (material) desire. It is rather about discovering one’s humanity and vocation; it is about understanding that human life through time is a pilgrimage, and preferably a holy one. This is precisely what the Jubilee Year 2025 calls us all to: to be pilgrims of hope.
In his bull, the Pope speaks of signs of hope, signs waiting for our actions: our work for peace, care for life, support for prisoners, the sick, the young, migrants, the elderly, and above all, the poor. But how? The Pope answers: anchored in hope, with eyes fixed on eternal life, through the sacrament of reconciliation, together with the holy Mother of God, also known as Stella Maris, the Star of the Sea – a name that “expresses the certain hope that in the storms of this life, the Mother of God comes to our aid, supports us, and encourages us to trust and hope.”
Let us enter the new liturgical year, the celebration of Christmas, and the Jubilee Year of the entire Church, strengthened by this confidence.
Marko Tervaportti