Just a few months before his death, Pope Francis solemnly opened the Jubilee Year : 29th December 2024. Already weakened, the Pope invited the entire Church to embrace the Holy Year as a Year of Hope. In his Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee, he wrote: “Christian life is a journey that needs moments of strength to nourish and fortify hope, that irreplaceable companion that gives us a glimpse of the goal: the encounter with Jesus Christ.”
My work at Notre Dame des Foyers, a small parish in one of Paris’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, I am constantly surrounded by teenagers and young people. I love this mission: I love young people, their spontaneity, their sharing, their search for meaning and their efforts to strike a balance between their dreams and the reality of their future.
Just as young people are a sign of hope for humanity, they also need to see signs of hope around them. This is why Pope Francis’s beautiful message for this year is addressed to everyone: “During the Jubilee Year, we are called to be called to be tangible signs of hope…”
What are the tangible signs of hope? What does that mean for young people today? I’m intrigued! So I decided to ask the young people in my parish.
Here are some of their answers:
Ella, a nursing student who was recently baptised, says that she becomes a tangible sign of hope by showing her devotion to Christ and bearing witness to what God has done for her through his providence.
Julien, a sportsman and architecture student, believes that a sincere smile, extending help to strangers, offering support to others without expectation of reciprocity, and praying for others can achieve this.
For Ethan, a film student and the parish ‘geek’, becoming a sign of hope means keeping your faith, being positive, looking for the good in others, and trying to uplift those around you.
What more can be said? Hope is an integral part of our faith and our lives. Even more than that! Pope Francis says that “hope, in fact, is born of love and is based on the love that flows from the Heart of Jesus pierced on the cross.”
Thank you, Lord, for this Jubilee Year and this Year of Hope that we are currently relishing! Thank you for the wonderful relationship between young people and the Church – a vibrant bond that shows us that young people are the hope of the Church, and that the Church is the hope of many young French people.
Ana Slivka FMM
Paris, North West Europe
