Page 6 - February Mag 2025.2.6.2025.Web

SPIRITUAL

Fr. Valerian M. Michlik
GCU Spiritual Advisor

Who Will YOU be in 2025?

ear Friends: may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging
As I write this article, we are well on the from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity
way of the New Year 2025. How did you to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt.
welcome the New Year 2025? Did you God’s word helps us find reasons for that hope. Taking it
D celebrate with family and friends? Did you go as our guide, let us return to the message that the Apostle
out to celebrate or did you stay home? To be Paul wished to communicate to the Christians of Rome.”
honest I stayed home and was in bed by 9:30 pm. Why? I How providential is this theme of Hope for us today
wasn’t feeling well. I actually slept through the fireworks in as we walk through a world full of transition and division,
Upper St. Clair, did not hear a thing (NyQuil really works)! and here our Holy Church is eager to engage this timely
I’m sure many of us enter the new year with certain and important theme to all humanity.
expectations which is a common practice. However, it is How do you view Hope in your life? In day-to-day
important to set realistic and manageable goals. But as we conversations we use the word hope in several ways.
look around us, we see that for many, manageable goals For example: I hope I win the lottery! I have a family
are quite impossible. The devastation we see in Southern member that says that a lot. In that situation hope is that
California, neighborhoods destroyed, the cries and tears of desire for something good in the future. Or as a good
thousands and thousands of people who lost everything. Pittsburgher you might say “I hope the Steelers will win
Over in Eastern Europe the war continues, soldiers and the Superbowl!” (not going to happen). Hope again is
civilians are being killed on a daily basis. In the Middle East that thing in the future that we desire.
we hope and pray that the ceasefire agreement will endure For us as followers of Christ, the virtue of hope goes
and stop the bloodshed of innocent people. together with the power of faith. And hope, like faith, is
In all these worldly tribulations our Holy Church in that which is not seen. According to our venerable
speaks to us as a good Mother. But how? father Paisios of Mount Athos: “Hope is the assurance
On Christmas Eve, December 24 , at St. Peter’s that God’s love will never fail us, even in the midst of our
th
Basilica in Rome, Pope Francis opened the Holy Doors deepest struggles.”
in a ceremony that officially inaugurated the Jubilee Year This Jubilee Year 2025 could not have come soon
2025. The theme of this Jubilee is “Pilgrims of Hope.” enough, because so many of the social ills of our day
In SPES NON CONFUNDIT; “Hope does not are symptomatic of the loss or lack of hope in our world
disappoint” (Rom 5:5) his official document announcing today. Jubilee 2025 calls each one of us to a spiritual
the Year of Jubilee 2025, Pope Francis wrote: “Everyone renewal and to the transformation of the world by re-
knows what it introducing hope to the world. A world without God is a
is to hope. In world without hope; without hope, there is no future.
the heart of So, where does the idea of a Jubilee Year come from?
each person, The origins go back to the Old Testament. According
hope dwells as to Leviticus 25:8-25, Jubilee Years were times when
the desire and “debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, families were
expectation of restored to their ancestral inheritance, and the whole
good things to nation of Israel was to rest in God’s blessing.” In the
come, despite Western Church the practice of celebrating Jubilees was
our not knowing renewed in the Middle Ages as a sign of mercy during
what the future times of special hardship.
may bring. Even Now we get back to the title of this article: Who Will
so, uncertainty YOU be in 2025?
about the future CONTINUED on page 7

4 GCU MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2025