Papal Bull excerpts | CorpusChristi Parish

Papal Bull“Spes Non Confundit"
"(Hope does not disappoint)”

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For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the “door” of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as “our 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.
May the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope. God’s wordhelps us find reasons for that hope.

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Hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
The Church of Rome was not founded by Paul, yet he felt impelled to hasten there in order to bring to everyone the Gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, a message of hope that fulfils the ancient promises, leads to glory and, grounded in love, does not disappoint.

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Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross.
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.
As Saint Augustine observes: “Whatever our state in life, we cannot live without these three dispositions of the soul, namely, to believe, to hope and to love.”

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Saint Paul is a realist. He knows that life has its joys and sorrows, that love is tested amid trials, and that hope can falter in the face of suffering. Even so, he can write: “We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-4).
Beyond the darkness, we glimpse a light: we come to realize that evangelization is sustained by the power flowing from Christ’s cross and resurrection. In this way, we learn to practice a virtue closely linked to hope, namely patience.
A renewed appreciation of the value of patience could only prove beneficial for ourselves and for others. Saint Paul often speaks of patience in the context of our need for perseverance and confident trust in God’s promises.

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The Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps towards the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.
Pilgrimage is of course a fundamental element of every Jubilee event. Setting out on a journey is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life. A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life.

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The Holy Year of 2025 is itself in continuity with preceding celebrations of grace….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.
During the Holy Year, may the light of Christian hope illumine every man and woman, as a message of God’s love addressed to all! And may the Church bear faithful witness to this message in every part of the world!

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In addition to finding hope in God’s grace, we are also called to discover hope in the signs of the times that the Lord gives us. In every age, the Church has the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.
We need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence.
The signs of the times, which include the yearning of human hearts in need of God’s saving presence, ought to become signs of hope.

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The first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war.
May the Jubilee remind us that those who are peacemakers will be called “children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

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Looking to the future with hope also entails having enthusiasm for life and a readiness to share it. Sadly, in many situations this is lacking. A first effect of this is the loss of the desire to transmit life.
Openness to life and responsible parenthood is the design that the Creator has implanted in the hearts and bodies of men and women, a mission that the Lord has entrusted to spouses and to their love.

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During the Holy Year, we are called to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.
“The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” (Isaiah 61:1-2). Jesus made those words his own at the beginning of his ministry, presenting himself as the fulfilment of the “year of the Lord’s favour” (Luke 4:18-19).

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Signs of hope should also be shown to the sick, at home or in hospital. Their sufferings can be allayed by the closeness and affection of those who visit them.
Works of mercy are also works of hope that give rise to immense gratitude.
Care given…is a hymn to human dignity, a song of hope that calls for the choral participation of society as a whole.

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Signs of hope are also needed by those who are the very embodiment of hope, namely the young….We must not disappoint them, for the future depends on their enthusiasm.
The Jubilee should inspire the Church to make greater efforts to reach out to [the young].
With renewed passion, let us demonstrate care and concern for adolescents, students and young couples, the rising generation.

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Signs of hope should also be present for migrants who leave their homelands behind in search of a better life for themselves and for their families.
A spirit of welcome, which embraces everyone with respect for his or her dignity, should be accompanied by a sense of responsibility, lest anyone be denied the right to a dignified existence.
May the Lord’s words in the great parable of the Last Judgement always find an echo in our hearts: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” for “just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me” (Mt 25:35, 40).

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The elderly, who frequently feel lonely and abandoned, also deserve signs of hope.
Here I would also mention grandparents, who represent the passing on of faith and wisdom to the younger generation. May they find support in the gratitude of their children and the love of their grandchildren, who discover in them their roots and a source of understanding and encouragement.

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I ask with all my heart that hope be granted to the billions of the poor, who often lack the essentials of life.
Each day we meet people who are poor or impoverished; they may even be our next-door neighbours.
Let us not forget: the poor are almost always the victims, not the ones to blame.

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Echoing the age-old message of the prophets, the Jubilee reminds us that the goods of the earth are not destined for a privileged few, but for everyone.
As sacred Scripture teaches, the earth is the Lord’s and all of us dwell in it as “aliens and tenants” (Lev 25:23).
If we really wish to prepare a path to peace in our world, let us commit ourselves to remedying the remote causes of injustice, settling unjust and unpayable debts, and feeding the hungry.

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The coming Jubilee Year will also coincide with a significant date for all Christians, namely, the 1700th anniversary of the celebration of the first great Ecumenical Council, that of Nicaea.
The Council of Nicaea sought to preserve the Church’s unity, which was seriously threatened by the denial of the full divinity of Jesus Christ and hence his consubstantiality with the Father. After various debates, by the grace of the Spirit they unanimously approved the Creed that we still recite each Sunday at the celebration of the Eucharist.
The Council of Nicaea was a milestone in the Church’s history. The celebration of its anniversary invites Christians to join in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Blessed Trinity and in particular to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, “consubstantial with the Father”, who revealed to us that mystery of love.
The Council of Nicaea also discussed the date of Easter.

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Hope is the virtue that…gives inward direction and purpose to the life of believers. For this reason, the Apostle Paul encourages us to “rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, and persevere in prayer” (Rom 12:12).
Surely we need to “abound in hope (cf. Rom 15:13) so that we may bear credible and attractive witness to the faith and love that dwell in our hearts; that our faith may be joyful and our charity enthusiastic; and that each of us may be able to offer a smile, a small gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed, in the knowledge that, in the Spirit of Jesus, these can become, for those who receive them, rich seeds of hope.

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“I believe in life everlasting”. So our faith professes. Christian hope finds in these words an essential foundation.
For hope is “that theological virtue by which we desire…eternal life as our happiness”.
We by virtue of the hope in which we were saved, can view the passage of time with the certainty that the history of humanity and our own individual history are not doomed to a dead end or a dark abyss, but directed to an encounter with the Lord of glory.
We live our lives in expectation of his return and in the hope of living forever in him. In this spirit, we make our own the heartfelt prayer of the first Christians with which sacred Scripture ends: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).

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The death and resurrection of Jesus is the heart of our faith and the basis of our hope.
Buried with Christ in Baptism, we receive in his resurrection the gift of a new life that breaks down the walls of death, making it a passage to eternity.
The most convincing testimony to this hope is provided by the martyrs. Steadfast in their faith in the risen Christ, they renounced life itself here below, rather than betray their Lord. We need to treasure their testimony, in order to confirm our hope and allow it to bear good fruit.

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What, then, will become of us after death? With Jesus, beyond this threshold we will find eternal life, consisting in full communion with God as we forever contemplate and share in his infinite love.
All that we now experience in hope, we shall then see in reality.
“I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, not height, not depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

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Another reality having to do with eternal life is God’s judgement, both at the end of our individual lives and at the end of history.
We should indeed prepare ourselves consciously and soberly for the moment when our lives will be judged, but we must always do this from the standpoint of hope.
In the words of Benedict XVI: “At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy”.
[Judgement] is meant to bring us to a definitive encounter with the Lord. The evil we have done cannot remain hidden; it needs to be purified in order to enable this definitive encounter with God’s love.
Here we begin to see the need of our prayers for all those who have ended their earthly pilgrimage….The Jubilee indulgence, thanks to the power of prayer, is intended in a particular way for those who have gone before us, so that they may obtain full mercy.

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The [Jubilee] indulgence is a way of discovering the unlimited nature of God’s mercy.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is not only a magnificent spiritual gift, but also a decisive, essential and fundamental step on our journey of faith. Let us not neglect Confession, but rediscover the beauty of this Sacrament of healing and joy, the beauty of God’s forgiveness of our sins!
Still, as we know from personal experience, every sin “leaves its mark”. In our humanity, weak and attracted by evil, certain residual effects of sin remain. There are removed by the indulgence, always by the grace of Christ.
This experience of full forgiveness cannot fail to open our hearts and minds to the need to forgive others in turn. Forgiveness does not change the past…yet it can allow us to change the future and to live different lives, free of anger, animosity and vindictiveness.

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Hope finds its supreme witness in the Mother of God. In the Blessed Virgin, we see that hope is not naïve optimism but a gift of grace mid the realities of life.
At the foot of the Cross, she witnessed the passion and death of Jesus, her innocent son. Overwhelmed with grief, she nonetheless renewed her “fiat”, never abandoning her hope and trust in God. In the travail of that sorrow, offered in love, Mary became our Mother, the Mother of Hope.
It is not by chance that popular piety continues to invoke the Blessed Virgin as Stella Maris, a title that bespeaks the sure hope that, amid the tempests of this life, the Mother of God comes to our aid, sustains us and encourages us to persevere in hope and trust.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City is preparing to celebrate, in 2031, the fifth centenary of Our Lady’s first apparition. Through Juan Diego, the Mother of God brought a revolutionary message of hope that she continues to bring to every pilgrim and all the faithful: “Am I not here, who am your Mother?” That message continues to touch hearts in the many Marian shrines throughout the world.

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“May we who have taken refuge in him be strongly encouraged to seize the hope set before us. We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered” (Hebrews 6:18-20).
The image of the anchor is eloquent; it helps us to recognize the stability and security that is ours amid the troubled waters of this life, provided we entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus.
May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope…
Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: “Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14).

This concludes our series of excerpts from the Papal Bull “Spes Non Confundit” (Hope does not disappoint). We hope you have found this series fruitful in your spiritual life. We invite you to check our website for other resources on the Jubilee Year, which ends on January 6, 2026.

Papal Bull“Spes Non Confundit" "(Hope does not disappoint)”