A Special Year of Hope & Mercy

The Jubilee Year 2025 is a time of hope and restoration, mercy, grace, and reconciliation — a year in which especially young people have a great opportunity to connect with God, suggests Fr Kelvin Banda OP in his reflection for the Jubilee of Missionaries of Mercy.

There has been a shift in the human heart since the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the first lockdown five years ago this month. The years 2020-21 were dark nights of the soul. Many people lost their jobs; businesses went under, and loved ones died from the virus. This led many to despair: “Where will our help come from?”

Loss of hope leads to doubt; people may seek desperate measures to survive. The time of loss and despair is an occasion to “fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 6:12) — or, in the words of the late South African theologian Fr Albert Nolan OP, a time to “hope against hope”.

Lost hope can be revived during the Jubilee Year, a proclaimed year of favour, release and forgiveness, reconciliation and freedom, and a time to re-encounter God in a special way. The Jubilee Year serves as a symbol of freedom — both spiritual and material — with inspired efforts to attain it.

In Isaiah 61:1-4, the concept of jubilee is linked to a God who redeems those who are brokenhearted and live in darkness. He restores hope by bringing justice, equality, and peace. Humankind needs a fresh inauguration, a fresh moment and a new beginning with God. This new beginning must push us to be the “pilgrims of hope”, which this Holy Year calls us to be.

We need to live with a hope through which our souls will be cleansed and purified from sins, past errors and mistakes, and restart anew with God. As the Pilgrims of Hope, which the Jubilee calls us to be, we need to look for the signs in our everyday life in which we can bring reconciliation, peace and harmony. The Jubilee Year should help us to renew our faith, to dive deeper and continue to hope and embark on our own pilgrimage.

The wide-open door

Furthermore, during the Jubilee Year, the younger generation should always hope that something better will dawn from Jesus who is the wide-open door. This hope of something better should symbolise in the young the “call to mission” — that we are not here to receive the Lord only for our own sanctification and holiness.

We are all here to be nourished and after being nourished, to go out to nourish others who are hungry for love — people looking for Jesus. In this way we become instruments of hope and missionaries of mercy. We are all encouraged to sow seeds of hope in one another, within our communities and the wider family of God. For Catholics, the Jubilee Year is a time to seek deeper conversion, reconciliation and communion with God and with each other.

The Book of Leviticus tells us that the jubilee years of the Israelites, celebrated every 25 years, were marked by liberation. It was a time when debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, and ancestral lands were returned to their original owners. It was a time of rest and restoration symbolising trust in the providential mercy of God.

In 2025, the Jubilee Year calls Christians and people of other faiths to look to God and set their priorities to receive the hope and mercy of God, and then to carry this to the whole world. The Jubilee Year is meant to nurture and foster hope in people of all faiths, to seriously meditate, discern and reflect on the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

Access God-given hope, grace, mercy

This mercy begins within our faith. Pope Francis is revitalising the importance of the sacrament of reconciliation “so that the witness of believers might grow stronger and more effective”. In addition, the faithful may gain the “merciful indulgence” of God. The Jubilee Year is declared to encourage the faithful to access God-given hope, grace and mercy, and, if their faith has been shaken, to return to their home — their Father’s Church (Luke 15:11–32).

The younger generation especially needs to renew their hope in God, particularly those who might have lost their sight and their grip on their relationship with God.

The Jubilee Year is a favourable year to perform corporal acts of mercy. Jesus commanded us to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, and to visit the prisoners (Matthew 25:35-45). Jesus gave us this command to be practised in a realistic, personal and meaningful way while maintaining a full, robust, regular life. We are Pilgrims of Hope, chosen to do God’s work on this earth — to care for the poor and the sick, to feed the hungry, to bring hope to the hopeless, to strive for justice and peace, and to do all of this in the name of Jesus. That is what the Jubilee Year is announcing to us.

As a family of God, we must work to make our country and the whole world a “City of Mercy and Hope”, so that through us, anyone struggling to live a meaningful life may experience God as their hope and their light.

The Jubilee Year is a year of grace. It is a year of favour as we all look to God with hope and faith, to show us his mercy and grace and to have sins forgiven, thereby letting God restore our blessings. It is a year when the face of God will turn towards us and give us peace (Numbers 6:22-27).

Fr Kelvin Banda is a Dominican priest currently serving in the archdiocese of Cape Town.

Published in the March 2025 issue of The Southern Cross