Joyful Gospel Living
“Behold, I come to do Your will, O God.”
Fourth Sunday of Advent 2024
This weekend, the Church begins the short/last week of Advent and prepares to celebrate Christmas. This has been no ordinary Advent, though. Many preparations have been made for the celebration of Jubilee Year 2025. On Christmas Eve at 7:00 PM in Rome, Pope Francis will open the door to the Papal Basilica of St. Peter, inviting all of us to become pilgrims of hope. The Vatican has a special website for the Jubilee activities:
https://www.iubilaeum2025.va/en.html
In his epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul notes that Jesus understood that God did not require obligatory holocausts or burnt offerings (i.e., sacrifices) from anyone. Rather, God only desires our humble and contrite hearts. He quotes Jesus saying, “Behold, I come to do Your will, O God.” This is an important teaching for us, because human beings have a great gift from God in our free will. We choose our pathway that we take in our life. God offers us eternal life, but we must respond to God with our willing spirit, just like Mary did in the Gospel reading.
In “Spes Non Confudit” (Hope Does Not Disappoint), the Papal Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee Year 2025, Pope Francis highlights what it means for a pilgrim to be on a willing journey of faith:
“By His perennial presence in the life of the pilgrim Church, the Holy Spirit illumines all believers with the light of hope. He keeps that light burning, like an ever-burning lamp, to sustain and invigorate our lives. Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love.”
What does the image of opening a door mean to us? Are we curious about what awaits us behind the door? How will we respond to the Holy Spirit’s call to learn more about God’s will for us? The Holy Father describes the symbolism of Jubilee 2025 for us:
“Now the time has come for a new Jubilee, when once more the Holy Door will be flung open to invite everyone to an intense experience of the love of God that awakens in hearts the sure hope of salvation in Christ. The Holy Year will also guide our steps towards yet another fundamental celebration for all Christians: 2033 will mark the two thousandth anniversary of the redemption won by the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are about to make a pilgrimage marked by great events, in which the grace of God precedes and accompanies His people as they press forward firm in faith, active in charity and steadfast in hope (cf. 1 Thess 1:3).”
Pilgrims to Rome will visit the traditional holy doors of the Seven Pilgrimages: Basilica of St. Peter, Basilica of St. Mary Major, Basilica of St. John Lateran, Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, Basilica of St. Lawrence outside the Walls, Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (where St. Monica brought relics back from Calvary to Rome), and Basilica of St. Sebastian outside the Walls. Visiting these churches on foot is a 25 km (15 mile) walk. Globally, bishops will also designate holy doors for Jubilee 2025.
A jubilee hymn was composed by Pierangelo Sequeri and set to music by Francesco Meneghello. As with all liturgical music, this hymn opens us to do the will of God through faith, with trust and reliance on the source of Life. The song is full of a longing “charged with the hope of being freed and supported. It is a song imbued with the hope that it will reach the ears of the One from whom all things flow. It is God who as an ever-living flame keeps hope burning and energizes the steps of the people as they journey.”
Recordings of the song and the musical score can be found at this link:
https://www.iubilaeum2025.va/en/giubileo-2025/inno-giubileo-2025.html
As we seek to do God’s will in imitation of Christ, perhaps every pilgrim of hope will treasure the refrain to the hymn:
Like a flame my hope is burning
May my song arise to You.
Source of life that has no ending,
on life’s path I trust in You.
The Jubilee 2025 also has a beautiful prayer for pilgrims of hope that puts forth a desire to be drawn closer to God and discerning His will:
“Father in heaven, may the faith You have given us in Your Son, Jesus Christ, our brother, and the flame of charity enkindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, reawaken in us the blessed hope for the coming of Your Kingdom. May Your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the powers of Evil vanquished, Your glory will shine eternally. May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven. May that same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth. To You our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise for ever. Amen.”
When Mary and Elizabeth became pregnant as part of God’s plan, they were both delighted to do God’s will. Like Elizabeth, we too can be awed by what God has in store for us:
“Blessed are you who believed…”
Teresa S. Redder, OFS (Saint Katharine Drexel Regional Minister)
Leave a Reply