Every other Saturday during the Jubilee, pilgrims to Rome will be able to see Pope Francis at a special "Jubilee audience." These public events are an addition to the Wednesday general audiences.
The first was held this morning in Paul VI Hall, and the Pope said these audiences aim to "welcome and embrace all those who are coming from all over the world in search of a new beginning. Indeed, the Jubilee is a new beginning, the possibility for everyone to start anew from God. With the Jubilee we start a new life, a new phase."
The Pope said that the Saturday events would give him the chance to highlight elements of hope.
Before thousands of pilgrims and the many Italian groups gathered in Paul VI Hall in a very warm atmosphere, Pope Francis invited people to live the Jubilee as "a treasure of grace and mercy."
The 88-year-old pontiff, who spoke with a stronger voice than in previous days and seemed delighted by the atmosphere worthy of a football stadium, developed a brief teaching on hope as a "theological virtue."
It is a theological virtue, the Catechism tells us. And in Latin, virtus means “strength”; thus, it is a strength that comes from God. Hope, therefore, is not a habit or a character trait – that you either have or you don’t – but a strength to be asked for. That is why we make ourselves pilgrims: we come to ask for a gift, to start again on life’s journey.
As tomorrow is the feast of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, the Pope considered John the Baptist as a "prophet of hope."
Just as we today pass through the Holy Door, so John proposed to cross the river Jordan, entering the Promised Land as Joshua had done the first time. To begin again, to receive the land all over again, like the first time. Sisters and brothers, this is the word: begin again.
The Pope invited the faithful to ask: "Do I have within me a true desire to start again? Think about it, each one of you: inside myself, do I want to begin again? Do I want to learn from Jesus who is truly great?"
From John the Baptist, then, we learn to recreate ourselves. Hope for our common home – this Earth of ours, so abused and wounded – and the hope for all human beings resides in the difference of God. His greatness is different. And let us start again from this originality of God, which shone in Jesus and which now binds us to serve, to love fraternally, to acknowledge ourselves as small. And to see the least, to listen to them and to be their voice. Here is the new beginning, our Jubilee.
At the end of the greetings in various languages, the Pope invited people to "pray for peace." "Let us never forget that war is always a defeat. Let us pray for the countries at war, so that peace may come," the Pope implored, without naming any specific country.
The next Jubilee Audiences will be held February 1, February 15, March 1 and March 15.
