Our Sacred Stories ~ Salvation and Liberation – God’s Message of Care and Compassion

Seven hundred years is a long time. How surprising is it that more than 700 years ago our faith community, our church began a custom that endures, even today? In the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII called for the celebration of the first Jubilee year. Following the Jewish custom of Jubilee, held every 50 years, the Christian community was called to undertake a time of forgiveness, reconciliation and new life. Such a Jubilee was intended to bring rebuilding and renewal to both community and individuals.

With a year of Jubilee, all were to renew their relationship with God, with one another and with creation. Among other things, such jubilee renewal was seen to include the healing of differences and tensions, the forgiveness of sins and debts and the resting and renewal of lands by letting it lie fallow. In the end, the Jubilee year was a chance to “start over” and not be burdened with the failures of the past. It was to be the opportunity for new life, marked by a fresh start and the peace that all long for.

Since initiating this custom in the year 1300, our faith community has continued to celebrate it in some way every 50 years (more recently, every 25 years) as a way of becoming a community of forgiveness and reconciliation. In doing so, the Catholic community has lived in hope of becoming increasingly a community of compassion and care, one that works to build, peace and reconciliation among ourselves and among all the peoples of the earth.

Pope Francis summoned us to see this year, as a Jubilee year. To mark this year, he called for the whole community to see ourselves as “Pilgrims of Hope” for the sake of our world. Such a pilgrimage calls us to bring to our world a longed-for blessing. Into a world marked by differences and tensions, violence and exploitation, pilgrims of hope can plant the peace and reconciliation, freedom and liberation that so many seek. We are to be missionaries of peace and healing for all.

The words drawn for the Old Testament Book of Exodus express well God’s call, issued to us as it was issued to Moses: I have seen the misery of my people…. I have heard their cry…. I know their suffering,… and I have come down to deliver them (Exodus 3:7-8).

This is a message for today. It is what we are all about as God’s People, as Church. The message we hear in the Gospels and the Good News we are called upon to share is what Jesus has handed on to us. It is the message of God’s care and compassion for all humanity – a message of liberation for all. In the Gospel of this 3rd Sunday in Lent (Luke 13:1-9) the figure of the gardener reveals this message of compassionate care for the weak and the vulnerable.

The work of the Christian is the work of liberation. We are about freeing those in bondage of injustice and oppression. We are about showing compassion to the sick and the suffering. We are about lifting the burdens of the poor and the powerless. We are to be a people of the liberation,for all.

The Catholic Christian Church in Canada reaches out to touch our world with the Good News of liberating love in many ways. One of these touches is through the Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. All over the globe the resources of Development and Peace are used to care for those facing the burdens of poverty and injustice. In a few weeks, on the 5th Sunday of Lent, as a Christian community, Development and Peace will lead us to stand in solidarity with these most burdened peoples of our world. In doing so, we live the Jubilee Year of Hope and build relationships marked by peace and new life together.