How Can I Keep from Singing?
This Sunday, Bishop Ronald Hicks will celebrate the 10 am Mass at our church. He comes to us to share the joy of a people who know that they are loved by God and saved by Jesus Christ. Our Bishop comes to share with us the joy of the Jubilee Year and most especially, that our church is a designated pilgrimage church in this Holy Year.
What is this great joy of the Jubilee Year? This joy flows from the graces that God wants to offer us in this time. He is giving us “grace after grace” as St. Paul wrote, but in this special year He offers us an extraordinary grace – the grace of the plenary indulgence, that is, the removal of all punishment for our sins. We can offer this indulgence for ourselves or for someone who passed away.
We cannot receive these extraordinary graces incidentally or automatically – they require our “personal” action. This is the reason why we cannot offer them for others who are living. They have to engage themselves in order to gain them. Remember when Jesus met a blind man? He did not heal him on the spot as we would probably do. Instead, He made mud and placed it on his blind eyes and asked him to go wash himself in the Siloam pond. The blind man could refuse or ridicule this request, but he made a personal decision to walk to the pond, still blind, limping on the stony street. Because of that trust, persistence and action, the blind man received the grace of sight: first the grace of physical sight, and secondly, the grace of spiritual sight – faith.
The graces of the Jubilee Year are working in the same way. Only a sincere conversion and a sign of penitence, in connection with visiting a pilgrimage church and fulfilling other requirements, can result in obtaining a special Holy Year indulgence.
The Jubilee Year will conclude in Rome on January 6, 2026, but will conclude in dioceses around the world and in our own church on December 28 this year. With that in mind, we still have nearly two and a half months of this special year of grace. Please consider coming for sacramental confession, “refrain from every kind of evil” (1Thes 5:22), and reject any inclination to sin as a sign that you are taking your faith seriously. Free from earthly attachments, we open ourselves for something greater in the future life for sure, but also for something greater in this life.
Let us sing to God a song of praise with the shepherd of our diocese Bishop Hicks with other priests, deacons and religious sisters – a praise for He exists, and that He, our Creator, Savior, and Sanctificator leads us to Himself. We really are Pilgrims of Hope, as the theme of the Jubilee Year states. We are not walking in circles but in a clear and specific direction – to Him. We know that “nothing can separate us from the love of God,” and He Himself assists us in this pilgrimage. Therefore, no misfortunes, sufferings, or storms of this life are able turn us away from this pilgrimage or weaken our determination in it.
Let us continue our pilgrimage of hope with joy.
Fr. Mark Jurzyk