Who will YOU be in 2025?

Dear Friends:
As I write this article, we are well on the way of the New Year 2025. How did you welcome the New Year 2025? Did you celebrate with family and friends? Did you go out to celebrate or did you stay home? To be honest I stayed home and was in bed by 9:30 pm. Why? I wasn’t feeling well. I actually slept through the fireworks in Upper St. Clair, did not hear a thing (NyQuil really works)!

I’m sure many of us enter the new year with certain expectations which is a common practice. However, it is important to set realistic and manageable goals. But as we look around us, we see that for many, manageable goals are quite impossible. The devastation we see in Southern California, neighborhoods destroyed, the cries and tears of thousands and thousands of people who lost everything. Over in Eastern Europe the war continues, soldiers and civilians are being killed on a daily basis. In the Middle East we hope and pray that the ceasefire agreement will endure and stop the bloodshed of innocent people.

In all these worldly tribulations our Holy Church speaks to us as a good Mother. But how?
On Christmas Eve, December 24th, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Pope Francis opened the Holy Doors in a ceremony that officially inaugurated the Jubilee Year 2025. The theme of this Jubilee is “Pilgrims of Hope”.

In SPES NON CONFUNDIT; “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5) his official document announcing the Year of Jubilee 2025, Pope Francis wrote: “Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt. God’s word helps us find reasons for that hope. Taking it as our guide, let us return to the message that the Apostle Paul wished to communicate to the Christians of Rome.”

How providential is this theme of Hope for us today as we walk through a world full of transition and division, and here our Holy Church is eager to engage this timely and important theme to all humanity.

How do you view Hope in your life? In day-to-day conversations we use the word hope in several ways. For example: I hope I win the lottery! I have a family member that says that a lot. In that situation hope is that desire for something good in the future. Or as a good Pittsburgher you might say “I hope the Steelers will win the Superbowl!” (not going to happen). Hope again is that thing in the future that we desire.

For us as followers of Christ, the virtue of hope goes together with the power of faith. And hope, like faith, is in that which is not seen. According to our venerable father Paisios of Mount Athos: “Hope is the assurance that God’s love will never fail us, even in the midst of our deepest struggles.”

This Jubilee Year 2025 could not have come soon enough, because so many of the social ills of our day are symptomatic of the loss or lack of hope in our world today. Jubilee 2025 calls each one of us to a spiritual renewal and to the transformation of the world by re-introducing hope to the world. A world without God is a world without hope; without hope, there is no future.

So, where does the idea of a Jubilee Year come from? The origins go back to the Old Testament. According to Leviticus 25:8-25, Jubilee Years were times when “debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, families were restored to their ancestral inheritance, and the whole nation of Israel was to rest in God’s blessing.” In the Western Church the practice of celebrating Jubilees was renewed in the Middle Ages as a sign of mercy during times of special hardship.

Now we get back to the title of this article: Who Will YOU be in 2025?
I invite you during this Jubilee Year to seriously be part of the “pilgrim people,” a term we apply to ourselves in the life of the Church, because we are just “passing through” this “vale of tears,” and we do HOPE to “pass over” with Jesus into the Kingdom of His Father. During this Jubilee Year a number of our faithful will be going on pilgrimages. A pilgrimage to Rome, Mt. Macrina in Uniontown, or to staryj kraj – the old country, is a way of reminding ourselves that life is a journey whose destination is Almighty God. In 2025 be part of this “pilgrim people.”

In 2025 become a Beacon of Hope. In a world that sometimes feels overwhelming, being a beacon of hope, being a good person is one of the most powerful things we can do to inspire hope in others. By spreading kindness, empathy and support, we not only make life a little brighter for those around us, but we also create a ripple effect that can change communities.

From its foundation, the GCU was and continues to be a Beacon of Hope for many. As you read the history of our fraternal benefit society, the founders and its members always wanted to become that source of hope for others. We, in 2025 are to carry on that virtue of hope by listening, by showing random acts of kindness, by offering our time to help others, by encouraging others, and by practicing empathy. From what I just spelled out, I encourage you to pick one or two suggestions as a realistic and manageable goal for who you will be in 2025!

Fr. Valerian M. Michlik | GCU Spiritual Advisor