Priests who have been preaching hope to their parishioners during the Jubilee Year of Hope can themselves feel fragile in hope, often carrying their own “burdens and discouragements,” Father Leo English told clergy gathered for a Jubilee celebration at Holy Rosary Cathedral.
Priests must remember that they are not “experts or owners of hope,” Father English said during his homily at the Dec. 10 vespers and benediction led by Archbishop Richard Smith. They are “pilgrims of hope.”
In the time of preparation for Christmas, and with the Jubilee Year nearing its end, Father English, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Vancouver, reminded priests that hope lies at the heart of Advent.
The time of waiting “brings us back to the quiet and fierce virtue of hope,” allowing Christians “to rejoice before the thing that we long for has come,” he said. That preparation becomes an invitation for the light of Christ “to seep once again into our own weariness.”
Father English recalled Pope Francis’ reminder that the Church in the Jubilee Year is also on a pilgrimage. A pilgrim, he said, walks humbly and points to the presence of God.
The same is true of clergy, who are to search for “signs of God in the dark” and direct others toward them, as John the Baptist and Isaiah did.
Quoting Oblate Father Ronald Rolheiser, Father English said hope is “a daily decision to trust God is working beneath the surface of our own world, and beneath our own ministry,” even when the signs are hidden.
Hope also means believing “that resurrection is quietly taking shape under every Good Friday,” including the “Good Fridays of Ukraine, Sudan, and the many, many broken places” of today.
He pointed to the cathedral’s Paschal candle—the flame that burns at baptisms, funerals, and the Easter Vigil—proclaiming “that death will never have the final word.”
That fire reminds Christians they are “an Easter people living in a Good Friday world,” bearing a light first given to them before they offer it to others.
Archbishop Smith later led the procession into the cathedral holding high a newly gilded crucifix, pausing to venerate it.
The cross was commissioned by the cathedral’s assistant rector, Father Pablo Santa Maria, who collaborated with local master craftsman Alejandro Gallegos, the artisan behind the cathedral’s Altar for Relics now installed on the right side of the cathedral.
Drawing on his experience in sacred art, Father Santa Maria selected the corpus himself after being inspired by a similar crucifix he encountered in Europe. After checking the price tag, he realized it would be better to make one himself.
He undertook the delicate gold-leaf work personally, teaching himself the technique through YouTube tutorials.
Jubilee Year coming to a close
On Dec. 25, the Vatican began the gradual conclusion of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope with the closing of the Holy Door of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, the first of the four papal basilicas in Rome to close its Holy Door.
On Dec. 27, the Holy Door of St. John Lateran was closed by Cardinal Baldassare Reina, followed by St. Paul Outside the Walls on Dec. 28 by Cardinal James Michael Harvey. On Jan. 6, the solemnity of the Epiphany, Pope Leo XIV will close the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, officially concluding the jubilee.
In Vancouver, Archbishop Smith will close the Jubilee Year on Sunday, Jan. 4, by celebrating Mass at 11 a.m. at Holy Rosary Cathedral.
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