Once again we can celebrate the New Year. This is a good time to look back, to discover what our journey with God and our brothers and sisters has been like. Surely we will still have unfinished business, actions planned but not carried out, healthy resolutions that we have not fulfilled, experiences marked by pain and loss. There will also be joyful situations that have filled our hearts and that reveal to us every day the abiding presence of God in our lives. But it is also a time to look to the future, to continue dreaming, and to place ourselves in the hands of God, our loving Father, to continue believing in life, to continue deepening the values of our Charism. Belonging to the Family of Pierre Bienvenu Noailles makes us face tomorrow always hopeful that we can continue building communities, in which we live the same spirit of the Family of Nazareth, seeking God Alone in all things.
The year that we are just beginning is special, however. Following an ancient tradition of the Church, Pope Francis invites us to celebrate a Jubilee Year in 2025, renewing the tradition of the Hebrews recorded in the book of Leviticus (25:10-13), whereby every 50 years, (today every 25 years), the people of Israel were to celebrate a Jubilee year, during which the freedom of slaves was proclaimed, land was returned to its original owners and debts were forgiven. This year was meant to restore social justice and enable the community to start on a new path.
In the present day, Jubilee is about stripping ourselves of everything that keeps us from moving forward and remembering the mission that Luke’s Gospel describes, quoting the prophet Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to evangelise the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour’ (Lk 4:18 19; cf. Is 61:1 2). These words of Jesus have motivated acts of liberation and conversion that we are all invited to live today in our daily encounters and relationships.
A glance at our world allows us to trace a scenario of pain and the search for meaning in life; there are many big questions that need an answer, hunger, ‘senseless’ wars, displaced people, migrants, refugees, violence against women, child exploitation, people behind bars, an endless number of situations that are full of pain and emptiness, but which are also an opportunity for redemption, liberation and conversion as long as we live in the light of the Gospel.
So let us live this Spirit, let us draw from the wonderful experience of reconciliation and conversion, let us renew our faith and draw closer again to the God of life. And as Family let us enter into this Jubilee experience centred on the essence of our Charism, drawing on our diversity and complementarity, open to respond to the challenges of our world today.
Happy New Year 2025 !!!
Happy Jubilee Year !!!
Luis Jesús García-Lomas
Lay Associate, Spain