Marco Morganella’s article, published on the Blog of the Alphonsian Academy. The series on the keywords of the Jubilee 2025: Pilgrimage – Post 1/2.
And what is living then?
The hope of coming to light of everything
and giving an account of it to the world. [1]
“Pilgrims of Hope”[2] is the motto with which Pope Francis announced the jubilee that is being experienced, an appointment of grace that will touch the life of faith of many Christians. This event was inaugurated, as is an ancient tradition, at the beginning of the celebration of Christmas Night, where the pontiff, although wrapped in his fragility and sitting in a wheelchair, opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.
There are many signs and words that express the jubilee, but a constant that always distinguishes it, even if the communication routes have changed, is dictated by the movement of women and men who set out to align their heads and hearts to the grace of God: that is, the pilgrimage.
Today as yesterday, in the heart of the believer when one undertakes a pilgrimage, there are many motivations such as feelings of trust in the Lord, requests for grace for particular family situations, to seek and rediscover the meaning of life that sometimes gets lost. In a particular way it is a way out of the ordinariness of one’s life and into an “extraordinary” time that opens the heart and mind to new horizons and peaks that one has not yet experienced in the journey of one’s history. The journey, step by step, becomes an existential condition through which every conscience can face the “odyssey” of one’s life and rediscover the long-awaited Ithaca,[3] finding oneself in the safe harbour after the common shipwreck.[4] The question that arises spontaneously is: what is the awaited destination that holds every pilgrim during the Holy Year that we are celebrating?
Many times, when one undertakes a pilgrimage one heads towards places that are symbols of faith, where at a specific moment in history God from the threshold of eternity incarnated himself once again in human history through men and women who bore witness to him through their lives, inflaming and invigorating the faith of many believers. With the jubilee the destination prepared for every pilgrim is the Holy Door, that is, the place where the heart of God manifests itself as a stronghold of redemption, giving back a “new” life that, washed from the stain of the pain of sin, becomes a breach of infinity.
In this way, the Jubilee pilgrimage becomes a journey that leads to crossing the Holy Door, a true Exodus in which one passes from the slavery of sin to the freedom of the children of God, rediscovering oneself as loved and in love with a Love that becomes tender and that proposes itself as a new beginning: a leap of humanity and new eternity in every heart.
The pilgrimage that every believer is called to undertake during this Holy Year does not only take place alone, but also touches the community chords where we discover the beauty of walking together, supporting each other in yearning for the hope of Christ Jesus who died and rose again for all humanity.
Christians live a spiritual life that is completed only through belonging to a community, a place where one’s life of faith comes true, although within the limits and circumstances that characterize walking together. Therefore, as Pope Francis states in his message for the beginning of Lent, “Christians are called to travel the path together, never as solitary travellers.“[5] In doing so, we walk together not only with the certainty that hope does not disappoint (Rm 5:5), but increasingly assuming what the Church lives as its profound vocation, that is, to become Christian communities that make the synodal style their own.[6]
The personal and community pilgrimage through these coordinates makes a new season of believers in Jesus’ flourish and mature in the consciences, animated by the Holy Spirit, who embody in their lives what St. Paul suggests, that is, competing in mutual esteem (Rm 12:10). In this way, one can reach the threshold of God’s mercy with the awareness that only by being together can one be saved, because by looking back one realizes that at this appointment no brother or sister of one’s own community is missing, with whom I have learned to “pilgrim” together.
[1] A. D’Avenia, Resist, heart. The odyssey and the art of being loved, Mondadori, Milan 2023.
[2] Francis, Spes non confundit, Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, in https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/bulls/documents/20240509_spes-non-confundit_bolla-giubileo2025.html
[3] A. D’Avenia, Resist, heart. The odyssey and the art of being loved, Mondadori, Milan 2023.
[4] Cf. Supplication to the Madonna of Pompeii, in https://www.famigliacristiana.it/articolo/il-testo-della-supplica-alla-madonna-del-rosario-di-pompei.aspx
[5] Francis, Message for Lent 2025, in https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2025/02/25/0151/00312.html
[6] Cf. Francis, Message for Lent 2025.
