Apostles for Today January- 2025

   
 

 

 

         Apostles for Today

            January - 2025

    As long as you live, there's hope

In conjunction with the Jubilee of the Church, we celebrate a Pallottine Jubilee.

 

 

We recognize that periodically the Church promotes a significant moment of reflection, forgiveness and spiritual conversion. Drawing inspiration from biblical times, the Church has convened and celebrated several jubilees since the 1300s. About 300 years ago, a fixed date was set, and so every 25 years Catholic Christians celebrate this event.

  The last ordinary jubilee took place in the year 2000, convened by Pope St. John Paul II. To live this experience, the four great basilicas of Rome – St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of St. Mary Major and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls – opened their Holy Doors, inviting pilgrims to a profound conversion of life. Subsequently, in an extraordinary way, in 2015, Pope Francis proclaimed a Jubilee of Mercy, celebrated in Rome and in all the dioceses of the world, with their respective Holy Doors. For the year 2025, again, after 25 years, the Jubilee of the Church will be celebrated in Rome, the Eternal City, a center of pilgrimage for many Christians.

 
In 2025, moreover, the only jubilee that our St. Vincent Pallotti experienced will be remembered: it will be the 200th anniversary of the Jubilee of 1825, proclaimed by Pope Leo XII through the Bull Quod Hoc Ineunte. 

 
It is particularly interesting to note, with this bull, that the Pope convokes a jubilee to promote a spiritual renewal of all and of the whole world in Jesus Christ, with the aim of igniting faith and charity among all Christians. The following passages from the papal document concerning the Jubilee of 1825 stand out:

 "(...) In this year, which we rightly recognize as a grateful and salvific time, we hope that we will be given the extraordinary opportunity to seek, with the salutary purification of the whole Christian people, a profound renewal in Christ, after so many afflictions that afflict the people. ...
"(...) I am thinking, in fact, of how much it contributes to rekindling faith and charity in the souls of visitors to walk through these ancient places, to which the majesty of religion is admirably entrusted; to revive in the imagination so many thousands of martyrs who consecrated this land with their blood; to enter the basilicas, to observe the sacred epitaphs, to venerate the relics (...)"
As sons of St. Vincent Pallotti, we are very familiar with the Pallottine terminology, and for this reason I am sure that we recognize some of the terms and concepts present in the words of that ancient papal text: renewal in Christ, inflame, revive, faith and charity. 

 

These are concepts that are very familiar to us. In fact, Pallotti was a son of his time. Thus, during the year 1825, in living through that Jubilee, we see how much he was influenced by that atmosphere.

Thanks to renowned biographers of our Saint, we know that he dedicated himself intensely to the promotion of that jubilee year. He was a young priest, passionate about priestly life and ministry, and in that year, we see him deeply committed as a confessor and promoter of unity among the various apostolic agents, always with the aim of bringing about the spiritual renewal in Christ that Pope Leo XII so desired.

 
Two hundred years after the celebration of that jubilee, we are in a new jubilee year and Pope Francis invites us to "revive hope" (SPES NON CONFUNDIT, Bull of proclamation of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, prg 1). Yes, it is indeed an interesting expression; it is an invitation to reflection: REVIVE hope! Nurturing courage, breathing life... 

 
The Jubilee of Hope, which will be celebrated this year, reminds us that as long as there is life, there is hope, and therefore we are invited to always fight... for what is good, for what is beautiful, for what is worthwhile, for joy, for honesty, for generosity... in short, for a lifetime! 

 
St. Vincent Pallotti, in a short letter addressed to his friend Felice Randanini, wrote that "As long as you live, there is hope: you are still able to obtain everything; and I hope you get everything, and more than you want. Pray, pray with confidence – Sancti qui sperant in Domino habebunt fortitudinem, assument
pennas ut aquilae, volabunt et non deficient = He who hopes in the Lord regains his strength, wears wings like feathers, runs without worrying, walks without tiring (cf. Is 40:31) – God is with you – God be with you always".

 
The Jubilee of the year 2025, proclaimed by Pope Francis, calls us to set out as Pilgrims of Hope. In this time of grace, we will experience a Pallottine Jubilee, in which we will remember that "As long as we live, there is hope", as Saint Vincent taught us. We will also celebrate the 200th anniversary of the only jubilee lived and collaborated by the Founder, as well as significant dates such as the 230th anniversary of his life and the 175th anniversary of his death. This will also be a propitious occasion to express our gratitude to God for the 190th anniversary of the Apostolic Inspiration, dated January 9, 1835. In addition, we will have the opportunity to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the beatification of St. Vincent Pallotti.

 
To live the Pallottine Jubilee Year to the full, we are invited to welcome this period as a time of grace and conversion, through confession, prayer and help to the needy. The change of life is a way of living this time. 

 
We will have the opportunity to obtain Plenary Indulgences by visiting the Church of the Most Holy Savior in Onda, in Rome, where the relics of the body of St. Vincent Pallotti rest. In addition, by papal concession through the Apostolic Penitentiary, we will be able to acquire these indulgences on the 22nd of each month during the year 2025, while we celebrate the memory of St. Vincent Pallotti anywhere in the world, in the churches and oratories where the Pallottine priests, nuns and lay people work.
Truly, we must not miss this opportunity of grace to rekindle hope in us, because

as long as there is life, there is always hope! All the time!

Fr. Daniel Rocchetti SAC

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