On New Year’s Eve, Catholics filled the pews at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend. The evening Mass held special significance: It not only marked the end of 2024 but also coincided with the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and the eve of the World Day of Peace. In his opening remarks, Bishop Rhoades, who celebrated the Mass, also emphasized another important event taking place in the life of the Church right now: a Jubilee Year. Celebrating Jubilee years was an ancient Israelite practice that marked sacred times of rest, freedom, renewal, and efforts toward equality. Photos by Paula LentBishop Rhoades speaks at a New Year’s Eve Mass at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend on Tuesday, December 31. “Every 25 years, we have a special year of grace,” Bishop Rhoades explained to those attending Mass. “The last ordinary jubilee year was in the year 2000. … This year, the pope has made the theme of this year hope – the virtue of hope.” Bishop Rhoades shared that as part of the Jubilee Year, which began on Christmas Eve and will end on Epiphany in 2026, Pope Francis has given diocesan bishops the opportunity to designate churches within their dioceses as Jubilee Churches. “Here in our Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, I’ve authorized nine of our churches to be Jubilee churches, including St. Matthew’s [Cathedral],” he shared. The pope has also granted diocesan bishops the authority to give a papal blessing at each Jubilee church during the Jubilee Year, and Bishop Rhoades’ visit to St. Matthew Cathedral marked both his first celebration of the Mass in a newly designated Jubilee church and his first time bestowing an apostolic blessing on churchgoers for the Jubilee Year. An apostolic blessing (or papal blessing) is a special indulgence. In his homily, Bishop Rhoades focused on the Jubilee Year’s theme of hope, grounding it in Jesus Christ, and offering Mary, His mother, as our model for living in hope. Bishop Rhoades began his homily by saying: “Every year, at the Mass of January 1, we hear in the first reading the ancient prayer of blessing which God gave to Moses to hand on to Aaron and his sons: ‘The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!’” He then quoted from Pope Francis’ reflection on the passage in light of the Jubilee Year of Hope: “There is no more meaningful time than the beginning of a new year to hear these words of blessing – they will accompany our journey through the year opening up before us. They are words of strength, courage, and hope. The theme of this Jubilee Year is hope. Not an illusory hope, based on frail human promises, or a naïve hope which presumes that the future will be better simply because it is the future. Rather, it is a hope that has its foundation precisely in God’s blessing, a blessing which contains the greatest message of good wishes there can be; and this is the message which the Church brings to each of us.” Making a connection between the New Year’s reading, the Jubilee Year of Hope, and the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, Bishop Rhoades reflected by saying, “The message of hope contained in the prayer of blessing that God gave to Moses was fully realized in a woman, in Mary, whom we honor today under her most ancient title, Mother of God.” Holding her as a model of hope for believers, he further said: “She placed all her hope and trust in God and is a model for us of unfailing hope in her Son. Through Mary, our hope of eternal life and salvation was born, the hope that was lost through the sin of Eve. It was restored through Mary, the New Eve. Throughout her life on earth, amid the seven sorrows of her life, Mary never lost hope. She never despaired. She is our model of the practice of the virtue of hope.” Bishop Rhoades, right, and Deacon John Burzynski process out of Mass at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend on New Year’s Eve, Tuesday, December 31. Noting the tragedies that plague our world today, on the World Day of Peace, Bishop Rhoades said: “Every year on January 1, the Church celebrates the World Day of Peace. At the beginning of the new year, we pray in a special way for peace in the world. We can be tempted to despair of ever attaining such peace, especially since the world seems always to be mired in war, violence, and conflict, as it is today. We can especially think of the Holy Land, of Palestine, Israel, and Gaza, and of Syria and Lebanon. There is also the war in Ukraine and other countries around the world. … Yet, we still hope for peace, recognizing that peace is both a divine gift and the fruit of human effort,” he exhorted. “In this Jubilee Year of Hope, it is good to reflect on Pope Francis’ words that ‘the first sign of hope (in our age and in this Jubilee Year) should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war.’ The Holy Father asks, ‘Is it too much to dream that arms can fall silent and cease to rain down destruction and death?’ He prays that the Jubilee will remind us that those who are peacemakers will be called ‘children of God,’ as Jesus teaches us in the Beatitudes.” “It is a big challenge for people suffering in war-torn lands to hold on to hope for peace, yet so many still trust in the closeness of God who never abandons us. We must not forget them.” Bishop Rhoades told the congregation that, during the Synod of Bishops in Rome this past October, he sat with the Ukrainian Catholic archbishop of Kyiv, who “shared with me about the faith and hope of his people and how important it was for them that we pray for them and that we support them in their suffering and their desire for justice and peace,” Bishop Rhoades shared, before exhorting: “On this World Day of Peace, let us pray for them and all the victims of war and violence in our world. Let us entrust them to the prayers and loving protection of the Mother of God, the Mother of the Prince of Peace! May she sustain them in their suffering and intercede for them, and may she intercede for us, for the Church, and for the whole world during this Jubilee Year of Hope!” The post A Call for Hope and Peace in the New Year appeared first on Today's Catholic.