DECEMBER 20, 2024
mississippicatholic.com
‘Pilgrims of Hope’: Vatican prepares to welcome millions for Holy Year BY CINDY WOODEN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The celebration of a Holy Year every 25 years is an acknowledgment that “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 toward the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus,” Pope Francis wrote. Opening the Holy Door to St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve, the pope will formally inaugurate the Jubilee Year 2025 with its individual, parish and diocesan pilgrimages and with special celebrations focused on specific groups from migrants to marching bands, catechists to communicators and priests to prisoners. Inside the Vatican basilica, the door had been bricked up since Nov. 20, 2016, when Pope Francis closed the extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy. Dismantling the brick wall be-
gan Dec. 2 with a ritual of prayer and the removal of a box containing the key to the door and Vatican medals. The Holy Doors at the basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls were to be freed of their brickwork in the week that followed. In January 2021, as the world struggled to return to some kind of normalcy after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis announced that he had chosen “Pilgrims of Hope” as the theme for the Holy Year. “We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and farsighted vision,” the pope wrote in a letter entrusting A cloth barricade reading “Rome Jubilee 2025” surrounds a construction site at the organization of the Jubilee to the beginning of the broad boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square and St. Peter’s Archbishop Rino Fisichella, presi-
Basilica Dec. 4, 2024. The city of Rome is preparing for the Holy Year with hundreds of roadworks and restoration projects. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
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‘Long live Notre Dame de Paris!’ Jubilation as iconic Catholic cathedral reopens BY CAROLINE DE SURY
PARIS (OSV News) – The solemn reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral put Paris in the center of the Catholic world on the evening of Dec. 7 as the archbishop of France’s capital struck the magnificent door with his pastoral staff, marking the moment of the iconic Catholic church’s rebirth. “Today, sadness and mourning have given way to joy, celebration and praise,” Pope Francis wrote to the archbishop of Paris – a message read in Notre Dame by the papal ambassador to France,
Archbishop Celestino Migliore. “May the rebirth of this admirable church be a prophetic sign of the renewal of the church in France,” the pope said in his Dec. 7 message. Bad weather forced the change of logistical plans. French President Emmanuel Macron, initially scheduled to speak on Notre Dame’s forecourt, spoke inside the cathedral due to howling winds. But nothing could overshadow the moment Parisians and “tout le monde entier,” the whole world, awaited for the last five years, since the inferno of April 15, 2019, that devastated the cathedral’s interior and collapsed the now-rebuilt spire. “I stand before you to express the gratitude of the French nation, our gratitude to all those who saved, helped and rebuilt the cathedral,” Macron said, adding that France had “achieved the impossible,” renovating Notre Dame in five years – a feat some
experts predicted would take decades. “Tonight we can together share joy and pride. Long live Notre Dame de Paris, long live the Republic and long live France,” he said. The cathedral, which for the last five years was home to hundreds of various trade workers, felt as if all the crowned heads and riches of the planet wanted to witness her resurrection, with Prince William, the heir to the British throne, and billionaire businessman Elon Musk present among many. But it was Archbishop Ulrich that opened the cathedral up for the world. “Notre Dame, model of faith, open your doors to gather in joy the scattered children of God,” Archbishop Ulrich called out in front of the central door, before striking it three times with the tip of his
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