Third dimension: A HEART FULL OF HOPE: Verumtamen a quod pervenimus ut idem sapiamus, et in eadem permaneamus regula. Phil. 3:16

On 9 May 2024, the Pope issued the Bull ‘Spes non confunde’ (‘Hope does not disappoint’). With these words of the Apostle Paul (Rom 5:5), Pope Francis presented the Bull announcing the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, which is intended to be an opportunity to revive the hope sustained by God-love. Hope, writes Pope Francis, is born of love and is founded on the love that flows from the Heart of Jesus pierced on the cross.

It is in this context that our jubilee takes place: “Keeping the fire burning to be pilgrims of hope”.

Our jubilee invites us:

• To clothe ourselves in the Spirit of Christ, to return ever more to Jesus and to centre our lives on Him, who is the Incarnate Word, the “Divine Poor One”. We run the risk, in the words of Pope Francis, of “being Christians without Jesus”. It is time to strengthen our identity as missionary disciples of Jesus, with a big and merciful heart that bends down to the poor.

• To rediscover the power of the Gospel and recover the original freshness of our charism, to recover the centrality of the Gospel of Christ, as St. Vincent did, freeing ourselves from so many secondary doctrines and religious patterns that take away ‘the fragrance of the Gospel.’

• Deepening and embracing the mysticism of Christ’s missionary charity, ‘Only a heart inflamed with the love of God is capable of infecting others.’ This deep conviction made St. Vincent a person of deep and authentic faith and prayer, committed, realistic and attentive to the problems of his time, ultimately, to ‘love God with the strength of his arms and the sweat of his brow,’ walking together in action and prayer.

• Working for integral evangelisation: Saint Vincent did not limit himself to preaching or simple social assistance. He knew how to combine proclamation with charity, preaching with promotion, dimensions of the same missionary action that seeks the salvation of the whole person and of all peoples. Mission and charity are two sides of the same service, which brings the Word that liberates and saves, and seeks to build fraternity and transform the causes that generate poverty and injustice. He said: ‘There can be no charity without justice.’

• Working for a more fraternal and sisterly Congregation: not thinking and living as islands; the certainty of knowing that we are one body must impel us to go beyond the confines of our provinces, paying greater attention to the needs of our confreres and their fields of action, so that the riches of some may nourish the life and mission of those confreres in grave need.

• Together with this, if we are truly ‘brothers walking in synodality, like friends who love one another,’ we will no longer be ‘angels on the street and demons at home,’ as Father Maloney reminded us. The Lord will bless our efforts and struggles; we will not lack vocations, as the Founder said: ‘Let God steer our little boat; if it is useful to him, he will prevent it from sinking,’ because in the end this “undertaking” is not ours, but his, and it is he who will bring it ‘to the desired harbour.’

• In conclusion, let us say with St. Vincent, ‘In nómine Domini,’ we are administrators of a new generation, which receives a glorious past, which struggles every day for a better world, and which must leave to those who come after us a better Congregation than the one we have received. And with St. Paul, let us say: ‘In any case, let us not delude ourselves into thinking that we have reached the goal, but, forgetting everything we have left behind, let us launch ourselves to obtain what is before us and run towards the goal, towards the prize that God calls us to from above, through Christ Jesus…’

Fr. Marlio Nasayó Liévano, CM

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