Given on 1st February 2025 at Westminster Cathedral for the Mass for Religious and Consecrated Life.
We come to this lovely celebration of Mass together this morning in order to renew our commitment to the Lord and his mission. As we celebrate the Presentation of the Lord, we present ourselves afresh to him who has called us, out of love, to be close to him and to whom we have tried to respond out of our love for him. This is a day of rejoicing in the call and the gifts we have received, each in a different way. I must admit that sometimes these gifts fade from sight as the demands of our way of life bring weariness or even resentment. But today is all about renewal.
Today we also come to celebrate all of you who are marking significant anniversaries of your first commitment. Eleven Diamond Jubilarians, as well as one Golden Jubilarian and two Silver Jubilarians. A total of 760 years of Religious Life between the fourteen Sisters!
Now this is, of course, a Jubilee Year, the 28th in the history of the Church. So our Jubilarians are Jubilee Jubilarians! I hope you will cherish that unique classification!
So permit me to bring these two together by reflecting with you on the official prayer for this Jubilee Year of Hope.
The prayer opens with a plea that our faith in Jesus, that we have been given, may be strengthened. This is, then, a year rooted in faith in our Blessed Lord, together with a strengthening of ‘the flame of charity enkindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit’.
A little while ago, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem said, rather movingly, that ‘Hope is the daughter of faith’. He continued by saying ‘A person of faith has a responsibility not to surrender to the situation’ and ‘Hope is not just expectation but the realisation of patience and mercy.’
May this Year, then, be a year in which our faith in Jesus, our loving trust in Him, grows deeper, in an intensely personal way. He is our companion, our friend in whose company we so wish to spend time each day, who delights in us and wants nothing more than that we be close to him. Without this loving intimacy, there will be no renewal and no true pilgrimage in hope.
Then the prayer moves on. It brings in a second theme: that of our mission.
It does so in a lovely phrase: ‘May your grace, Lord, transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel’. These seeds, it says, working from within, will transform our lives and even our universe.
I think we all know that being a planter of seeds is not a high-profile activity, demanding grand plans and constant effort. In fact, seeds tend to grow of themselves as long as there is a minimum of water and warmth. Then we are surprised and often delighted at the result. This is why I like this as an image of our mission: often understated, not calling attention to itself, keeping an eye on the warmth of love that is needed for growth, providing small doses of the water of encouragement, surprised at the inner goodness and beauty that was just waiting to burst out.
If I may say so: religious, especially religious women, are experts in this kind of cultivation. And I thank you for so many, countless, years of carrying out mission in precisely this manner.
The third chord that struck me in this prayer is found is in the words which describe the demeanour with which we approach our work of mission. It says that we do so ‘in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the powers of Evil vanquished, your glory will shine eternally.’
This brought to mind the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews which we heard at Mass on Wednesday: ‘But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting for the time until his enemies should be made a foot-stall for his feet’ (Heb. 10:12). This reminds us so clearly that great patience and humility are needed for our mission. It is part of a long struggle, a long project, never a quick fix, never the product of pressure or persuasion. But at every moment in this long journey, this struggle in mission, while we wait we have His company, knowing that he too is waiting. Our waiting is the patience of Christ, never wavering in that sure and certain hope that our destiny is secured, and so accepting our limited role in the great plan of salvation.
During this Holy Year, we are described, in its theme, as Pilgrims of Hope. Yet I was struck that the more accurate translation of the motto - Peregrinantes in Spem - is actually Pilgrims into Hope. This is important, for it is not as if hope, the daughter of faith, is already and fully in our possession. No, in its fulness hope lies ahead. We are, day by day, travelling towards hope, striving for its fuller expression, trying to see it embodied here and now, yet knowing that its full reality lies ahead. Only in this perspective are we saved from cynicism and a sense of helplessness that our great efforts are bearing little fruit, an experience that can dampen our zest for life and for the Lord.
And this brings me to the fourth horizon of the Jubilee prayer. ‘May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us a yearning for the treasures of heaven.’ Yes, this is deepest meaning of the virtue of hope, something much more than a general optimism about life even in face of many difficulties.
To be pilgrims of hope, then, means to live by the promise of heaven. This is what is meant by the virtue of hope. The Catechism defines it for us:
‘The theological virtue of hope is the power by which we desire the Kingdom of Heaven as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the grace of the Holy Spirit.’
For me, this is the heart of the Jubilee Year: to bring this virtue of hope, rooted in faith, expressed in service, into wider circulation. Hope is not an urging that if we do better, try harder, we shall solve the problems of the world. Our hope, as our prayer concludes, is rooted in the belief that the Holy Spirit, the grace of God in action will ‘spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth.’
Of this we are humble servants, concluding: ‘To you our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise for ever. Amen.’
My dear sisters and brothers, my congratulations to the jubilee jubilarians, my thanks to you all for your faith in our blessed Lord, for your hope in heaven, proclaimed by your enduring closeness to the Lord especially as death come nearer, and for all the love in service that you show, patiently, with long suffering but, so often, with infectious joy.
Thank you.
Amen.
✠ Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster