Bishop’s Message
Dear Fathers, Sisters and Brothers,
Greetings!
With immense joy, I wish you all a fabulous and grace-filled New Year. As we step into 2025, I pray that this year, for all of us, may be a journey with God’s abiding presence and endless possibilities of happiness and success.
We begin the New Year with the celebration of the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God which in a special way calls us to entrust this coming year to the Mother of God and consecrate our lives to her. On the same day the Church also marks the 58th World Day of Peace. In his message entitled “Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace,” Pope Francis reflects on the central theme of the upcoming Jubilee Year of Hope. As we know, for the World Day of Peace, the Holy Father addresses a message of good wishes and hope to the Heads of State and Government, Heads of International Organisations, Leaders of different religions and people of good will. Inside this month’s KNL, you will find the full text of the message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the LVIII World Day of Peace.
Having hope as the preponderant theme of his message, Pope Francis invites us to look at the many challenges that severely affect the survival of humanity and creation. According to him, the path toward “a true and lasting peace” in the world is possible only when it is rooted in the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. It also requires a desire for change on a personal, cultural and structural levels “in order to confront the present state of injustice and inequality.” To do this, it is necessary to rely on God’s mercy. By God’s forgiving our debts, we will rediscover ourselves all children of the Father, and therefore all brothers and sisters, united in the path of peace.
As we embark upon a ‘journey of hope’ in the Jubilee Year 2025, Pope Francis recommends three concrete actions that can truly mark a path of peace: the forgiveness of the international debt, the abolition of the death penalty and the establishment of “a global fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change.” He succinctly says: “If we take to heart these much-needed changes, the Jubilee Year of Grace can serve to set each of us on a renewed journey of hope, born of the experience of God’s unlimited mercy.”
At this juncture, I wish to thank the priests and lay faithful who borrowed their precious time to participate in the inaugural ceremony of the Jubilee Year 2025 at St. Joseph’s Convent, Nagercoil, followed by the procession symbolizing a pilgrimage to St. Xavier’s Cathedral and then, all the faithful passing through the main door. I am really happy to note that priests and lay faithful attended the holy mass in large numbers and I wish to thank the parish priests and the Vicars Forane for their proactive involvement in this regard.
Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on the evening of December 24, thereby officially inaugurating the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. Bishops worldwide, as we have done in our diocese, celebrated the opening of the Jubilee Year with masses in their cathedrals to mark the jubilee, which is themed “Pilgrims of Hope.”
In these days, we also perceive a great enthusiasm among our people about the Year of Jubilee 2025. As the diocese, on Nov 30, Saturday, we had one full day session for the secretaries and office bearers of the pastoral commissions, both diocesan and vicariate levels, amounting to around 250 participants. There was an exposition of ‘Spes non Confundit’, “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), Bull of Indiction by Pope Francis and in light of the document, the participants were guided to prepare the Year Plan 2025.
It is not enough, I believe, that the pastoral commissions alone take different activities forward in this Year of Hope. Rather, we, as the diocese and parishes, need to get deeply involved to make this Jubilee Year more meaningful and relevant to all of us. It can be done in two ways: firstly and primarily, an intent study of “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), the Papal document (available in Tamil published by TNLBC) will help us understand profoundly what the Holy Father intends for this Jubilee 2025. Secondly, a reorganization of our conventional perspectives and priorities is the call of the hour to engage ourselves in the ministries for the marginalized of the society that the Holy Father proposes in his document.
Let the clarion call of Pope Francis gear us up for the Year of Hope: “The coming Jubilee will thus be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God. May it help us to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation. May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope, a harbinger of new heavens and a new earth (cf. 2 Pet 3:13), where men and women will dwell in justice and harmony, in joyful expectation of the fulfilment to the Lord’s promises” (Hope does not disappoint, 25).
May the Lord’s grace fill this year with peace, joy and abundant blessings!