On January 1st each year, Pope Francis delivers a message of peace to the international community, invoking good-will, hope, and solidarity, especially with people who are oppressed, downtrodden, and exploited.[1]
This year, the Catholic Church celebrates a special event known as the year of “jubilee.” This was an ancient Jewish practice where every forty-ninth year a ram’s horn was blown to signify a year of forgiveness and freedom for all people, demonstrating the restoration of God’s justice in the use of land, possession of goods, and relationship with others, especially the poor.
In opening the Jubilee as the liberating justice of God in this world, Pope Francis replaces the sound of the ram’s horn with the “cry of the blood of Abel” (Gen 4:10) rising from where people are bound, exploited, and afflicted by “structures of sin” in our modern world.
His Holiness calls out the systemic oppression that are not exclusive to the human experience but interconnected across God’s creation which results in environmental degradation, moral decay, and the inhumane treatment of migrants, refugees, and trafficked people, which often includes children. Add to this the willful intention to confuse or radicalise the masses through digital misinformation, the refusal to dialogue with diverse groups of people, the huge expenditure spent on wars, the astronomical debts accrued by developing countries as a means of being controlled and manipulated by powerful countries, and the hope for peace seems almost impossible.
Yet, Pope Francis guides our focus back to Jesus and the prayer he taught in Matthew’s Gospel (6:9-13), where the forgiveness we seek from God the Father is required of us towards those who hurt and exploit us. By taking this course of action, we willingly depend on the Father’s guiding mercy to bring healing, restoration, justice, and peace to set people free from bondage, so that His shalom may reign in our lives.
Entering this year of Jubilee (forgiveness and freedom), His Holiness offers three proposals to the international community:
- Rich countries to forgive and cancel the debts of developing countries.
- Respect for the dignity of life from conception to natural death and the elimination of the death penalty in countries that legalise it.
- An appeal on behalf of future generations, to establish a global fund that eradicates hunger and facilitates educational activities that promote sustainable development and combating climate change.
Columban Father Jim Mulroney reflected that Jesus walked the earth during the time of the Roman Peace, yet his feet trod on soil drenched in the “sweat and blood of empirical suppression.”[2] The peace of the society that Jesus lived in was not distinguished by the absence of wars but through forced allegiance to protect the empire by dominating politics, culture, religion and economy. Yet Jesus states in the Gospel of John (14:27),
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Fr. Mulroney remarks that the true peace offered by Jesus was foreign to the Romans because it embodied an inner peace and harmony that permeated the body, soul, and mind, while being grounded solidly in the trust and grace of God.
May 2025 be a year where the peace of our God perseveres and flourishes in places where war, hostility, and injustice persist. May we strive for peace in the way that we challenge existing structures of sin that perpetuate systems of oppression upon humanity and creation. And finally, may we disarm our own hearts and turn away from self-serving exploits, greed, and indifferent attitudes towards those who most need our help, so that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:7).
Adi Mariana Waqa is the Partnership Coordinator at the Columban Mission Centre in Essendon.
