VATICAN CITY. Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of the Vatican Basilica, starting the 2025 Jubilee dedicated to the theme of “hope”. After knocking, following the ritual, the Pontiff remains still for a few moments, sitting on the wheelchair, in front of the door, before entering it. A few meters away is Michelangelo's Pietà. The image is immediately iconic.
First the Bishop of Rome recited a prayer saying: «Pilgrims in the world and witnesses of peace, let us enter the time of mercy and forgiveness, so that the path of hope that does not disappoint may be opened up to every man and every woman».
A few hours after the ceremony that marks the beginning of the Jubilee Year, Jorge Mario Bergoglio wrote on enter into that new life that is offered to us by the encounter with Christ. #Jubilee2025″.
“This is the Door of the Lord”: Pope Francis begins the Jubilee
The Pope is the first pilgrim to cross the Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica. After him – who still wears hearing aids today – about fifty faithful representing the world, and the concelebrants and some religious. Therefore, the Pontiff, after having officially opened the Jubilee of Hope (this is his second Holy Year, the first, extraordinary, was in 2015 and was dedicated to mercy) will celebrate the Christmas Eve Mass. There are around 6 thousand people in the Basilica, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. And also John Elkann and his wife Lavinia Borromeo.
In St. Peter's Square – Vatican sources report – there are around 25 thousand faithful who follow the Celebration through the giant screens. The area is totally armored. Metal detectors, special forces and snipers monitor the area.
In the homily the pontiff highlights that «with the opening of the Holy Door we have begun a new Jubilee: each of us can enter into the mystery of this announcement of grace. 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 to welcome this message, “to rediscover lost hope, renew it within us, sow it in the desolations of our time and our world”, we need to move “without delay. There are many desolations in this world, think of the wars, the machine-gunned children, the bombs on schools and hospitals… Don't delay, don't slow down, but let yourself be attracted by the good news.”
Hope, theme of the Jubilee 2025, «does not tolerate the indolence of the sedentary and the laziness of those who have settled into their own comforts, it does not admit the false prudence of those who do not go out of their way for fear of compromising themselves and the calculation of those who only think about himself; it is incompatible with the quiet life of those who do not raise their voices against evil and injustices committed against the poorest. The Pope underlines that Christian hope “demands from us the audacity to anticipate this promise today, through our responsibility and our compassion”.
The Holy Year «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 the logic of profit; become so for the poorest countries, burdened by unjust debts; you become one for all those who are prisoners of old and new slavery.” To everyone «the gift and commitment to bring hope where it has been lost: bring it 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”. The Jubilee “opens so that everyone may be given the hope of the Gospel, the hope of love, the hope of forgiveness”.
Christian hope «is not a happy ending to be passively waited for: it is the promise of the Lord to be welcomed here and now, in this land that suffers and groans. It therefore asks us not to linger, not to drag ourselves into habits, not to linger in mediocrity and laziness; he asks us, St. Augustine would say, to be indignant at the things that are wrong and to have the courage to change them.”
Christian 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”.
Francis concludes: «Sister, brother, on this night it is for you that the “holy door” of the heart of God opens. Jesus, God-with-us, is born for you, for us, for every man and every woman. And with Him joy flourishes, with Him life changes, with Him hope does not disappoint.”
