Francis performs the rite that begins the Holy Year. He is the first to cross the gate of St. Peter's, followed by over 50 pilgrims from every corner of the world in traditional clothing. Around 25 thousand people in the square, another 6 thousand in the Basilica where the Pontiff celebrates the Christmas Eve Mass. In the homily the invitation to “transform” a world plagued by poverty, slavery, conflicts: “Let's think about the machine-gunned children, the bombs on schools and hospitals”
Salvatore Cernuzio – Vatican City
In silence, in the wheelchair, with his head bowed in prayer and a thoughtful expression. Two shots at the bronze valves between the panels that tell the story of salvation. The Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica opens wide and Pope Francis is the first to pass through it.
The Jubilee begins. The Holy Year of hope begins. The time of indulgences, forgiveness, rebirth, renewal begins. The time of commitment to “bring hope where it has been lost”
Where life is wounded, in betrayed expectations, in broken dreams, in failures that shatter the heart; in the tiredness of those who can no longer take it, in the bitter loneliness of those who feel defeated, in the suffering that digs into the soul; in the long and empty days of prisoners, in the narrow and cold rooms of the poor, in places desecrated by war and violence
READ THE FULL TEXT OF POPE FRANCIS' HOMILY HERE
The Pope crosses the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica
“Pilgrims of hope” from every corner of the world
The moment is solemn. The tolling of the bells accompanies Francesco's slow walk. The faithful – 25 thousand outside in the square following the celebration on the big screens, around 6 thousand inside St. Peter's – who until that moment had awaited the Pope's arrival with prayer, remained silent the entire time . They join the Schola Cantorum in singing the entrance hymn which resonates in the atrium and outside.
Fifty-four pilgrims of different nationalities, including from China, Iran and areas of Oceania, cross the Holy Door after the Pope. Feathered headdresses, flower headbands, sombreros, turbans can be seen lining up and crossing the gap that the Pontiff will close on 6 January 2026. They are the first “pilgrims of hope”, together with cardinals, bishops, concelebrants, representatives of other Christian religions, authorities including the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Pilgrims from all over the world pass through the Holy Door
The pain of wars
“May the door of hope be opened to every man and woman… which does not disappoint,” Francis said during the rite in the atrium of the Basilica. His face is serious, but you can read the emotion in his eyes. It is in its second Jubilee, after the extraordinary one announced in 2016 to remind the world of the importance of Mercy. This is the XXVII ordinary Holy Year of the Catholic Church, over a thousand years after the first, twenty-five after the “great Jubilee” of Saint John Paul II which brought the Church into the new millennium. Now an eighty-eight-year-old Pope, “who came from the end of the world”, wants to give an injection of hope to a world afflicted as never before in recent decades by crises, violence, wars which force us to witness dramatic scenes such as “children being machine-gunned” or “bombs on schools and hospitals”, as Francis denounces – off the cuff – in the homily of the following Mass on Christmas night.
This is the night in which the door of hope opened onto the world; this is the night in which God says to each one: there is hope for you too! There is hope for each of us. But do not forget, sisters and brothers, that God forgives everything, God always forgives
Hope is a promise, not a happy ending
The “Christian hope” that is given as a gift in the Jubilee season “is not a happy ending to be passively waited for”, “it is not the happy ending of a film”, but rather “the promise of the Lord to be welcomed here and now, in this land who suffers and who groans”, says the Pope in a crowded Basilica, decorated with flowers, where the statue of the Madonna Mother of Hope is displayed at the altar. This hope is “something else”; asks us to move “without delay” towards God. “We disciples of the Lord, in fact, are asked to rediscover our greatest hope in Him, and then bring it without delay, as pilgrims of light in the darkness of the world”.
“Hope is not dead, hope is alive, and it envelops our lives forever!”
Transforming the world
“Brothers and sisters, this is the Jubilee, this is the time of hope!”, exclaims Pope Francis. The Holy Year “invites us to rediscover the joy of the encounter with the Lord, calls us to spiritual renewal and commits us to the transformation of the world, so that this truly becomes a jubilee time: it becomes one for our mother Earth, disfigured by logic of profit; become so for the poorest countries, burdened by unjust debts; you become it for all those who are prisoners of old and new slavery”.
The Pope during the celebration of Christmas Eve in St. Peter's
“Without delay”
The Pope invites us to set out “without delay” so as to “rediscover lost hope, renew it within ourselves, sow it in the desolations of our time and our world”. So many desolations: “Let's think about wars”, states the Pope. “Do not linger”, “do not drag ourselves into habits”, “do not remain in mediocrity and laziness”, he further urges. Hope “asks us to become pilgrims in search of the truth, dreamers who are never tired, women and men who allow themselves to be disturbed by the dream of God, the dream of a new world, where peace and justice reign”.
The hope that is born this night does not tolerate the indolence of the sedentary and the laziness of those who have settled into their comforts, and many of us are in danger of settling into our comforts. Hope does not allow the false prudence of those who do not go out of their way for fear of compromising themselves and the calculation of those who think only of themselves; it is incompatible with the quiet life of those who do not raise their voices against evil and injustices committed against the poorest
“Audacity”, “responsibility”, “compassion”, are the paths indicated by the Bishop of Rome in this special time, starting already from this night in which the “holy door” of the heart of God opens: “With Him – concludes the Pope – joy flourishes, with Him life changes”. With Him “hope does not disappoint”.
The statue of Baby Jesus
At the nativity scene in the Basilica
At the end of the Mass, the Pope, accompanied by a group of children of different nationalities, goes to the nativity scene inside the Basilica to place the statue of Baby Jesus in the cave. There too, a few moments in prayer before the nativity which he urged us to look at as a reference for life. Then a passage through the central nave to greet the two wings of faithful.
