Tag: Jubilee Year of Hope

A morning at St Peter’s Square to attend a Wednesday papal audience turned into an “unforgettable” moment for the Archdiocese of Sydney’s Michael Digges who was pleasantly surprised by an opportunity to exchange a few words with Pope Leo XIV and even more surprised to find that the 2028 Eucharistic Congress in Sydney is top of the Holy Father’s mind.

This year we are celebrating the Jubilee Year: Pilgrims of Hope as declared by Pope Francis. We are also currently in the Season of the Resurrection in our Maronite Lectionary. The Resurrection is the source of our greatest hope.

Hope, founded on faith and expressed in acts of love, even when hoping is hard: that’s Easter hope, writes Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP for his Easter message this year.

There is something about the season of Lent that gently asks more of us. It does not demand grand gestures or loud statements; rather, it quietly invites us into honesty with ourselves, with God, and with our current place in the lifelong journey of faith we have been called to.

What exactly are plenary indulgences and what do they do? Gymea parish priest Fr Greg Morgan says, put simply, it is the “removal of any temporal punishment for sin.”

As we celebrate this Year of Hope with joy and anticipation, we are reminded that our Maronite Church is not only rooted in history but alive in the present, vibrant with faith, and full of hope for the future.

As a part of the Jubilee Year Piazza Navona, once the site of the Stadium of Domitian and the martyrdom of St Agnes, plays host to an initiative of the Dicastery for Evangelisation and Vatican Museums entitled “Icons of Hope.” It is one expression of Pope Francis’ desire for the Jubilee Year, that a sense of beauty meet pilgrims in their search for meaning.