Thank you for having me again. I had the privilege of speaking here last year, and before preparing for today, I looked back at what I said to make sure I wouldn’t repeat myself—because, of course, I’m sure you remembered everything I said!
This gathering takes place within the context of the Jubilee Year of 2025, an occasion of great significance for the Church. This Jubilee marks the 2,025th anniversary of the Incarnation, when God Himself took on flesh and entered human history. At the same time, we also celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicaea, a defining moment in Christian history that gave us the Nicene Creed—the very creed we recite at Mass every Sunday.
The theme of the Jubilee Year, chosen by Pope Francis, is “Pilgrims of Hope.” It is a beautiful and appropriate theme. At the moment of the Incarnation, when Mary responded “yes” to the angel Gabriel, she opened the doors of our world to hope. And this hope is not just an idea or an ideal—it is a person. It is Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of every human longing, the only hope that will never disappoint.
The Nicene Creed, that great profession of faith, is ultimately a proclamation of Christian hope. It affirms the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the promise of eternal life, and the truth that, through Christ’s sacrifice, mankind has been reconciled to God. This is not just a set of theological ideas—it is a lived reality that gives us confidence in the future, even in the face of trials and suffering. Our faith is not merely a philosophy or an ethical system—it is a promise of eternal life with God.
In his first epistle, St. Peter exhorts the Christian community, saying: “Be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you.” Yet, when we look around us today, it doesn’t seem like many people are eagerly waiting for us to explain the reasons for our hope. Our culture is not breathlessly demanding an answer to life’s big questions—in fact, many people seem convinced there are no answers at all.
So how do we communicate this hope in a world that seems increasingly secular, a world where God has been exiled to the margins of daily life?We are called to be Pilgrims of Hope in a world that seems to have lost hope entirely. And what is a world without hope? It is an existential desert—a place of loneliness, confusion, and spiritual starvation.
It is a world where tribalism replaces religious fervor, where identity politics take the place of true faith. It is a world where dysfunctional young people turn to violence, where classrooms and public spaces are no longer safe. It is a world where people try to numb their pain and loneliness through consumerism, drugs, or promiscuity. It is a world that has closed itself off from the transcendent, where people believe only in the material and nothing beyond. It is also a world without sacraments, for the sacraments are what guide us beyond the material, beyond the immediate, and into the transcendent. When the sacraments disappear, so does hope. And so, we see that the crisis of our age is ultimately a crisis of hope.
The social pathologies of our time—abortion, drug abuse, promiscuity, suicide, divorce, and the breakdown of the family—are all symptoms of this loss of hope. Even among those who identify as Christians or Catholics, we see a gradual erosion of hope in the way that many abandon regular Church attendance and the sacraments.
But at its core, prayer is an expression of hope. Only those who hope pray. Only those who believe in the future seek God. And if we are to journey forward in hope, we must be ministers of hope. But for that, we need priests. We need priests to give us the sacraments.
And we need the Holy Eucharist, which is itself a manifestation of hope in Jesus Christ. The Mass is a pledge of future glory—an anticipation of heaven. Without hope, there is no reason for the sacraments, no reason for Mass, and no need for priests.
So how do we rekindle hope in a world that has lost it? Before we can offer a solution, we must first diagnose the problem. Pope Francis has given us the right direction by calling us Pilgrims of Hope—following in the footsteps of Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Some say that modern people can’t believe in anything. But that’s not quite true. The real issue is that they will believe anything. Throughout history, people have placed their faith in false messiahs:
In the 20th century, many placed their faith not in the Gospel of St. Mark, but in Karl Marx, embracing ideologies that promised heaven on earth yet led to suffering.
Others embraced consumerism, thinking that happiness would come from possessions. Still others chased pleasure, believing that a promiscuous life would bring them fulfilment. The Church Fathers at Nicaea, and later those at the Second Vatican Council, did not set out to change the Church—they set out to change the world through the power of the unchanging Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The mission of the Church remains the same today: to proclaim Jesus Christ, the only one who can save us from sin and lead us to true hope. As Christians, we know we have a future—not because of human progress, not because of politics or technology, but because the Son of God took on flesh and leads us into communion with the Father. This hope gives us strength even when the present is difficult.
As Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, those who survived the concentration camps were often those who had hope—a reason to endure suffering. The same is true for us. If we have hope in Christ, we can face our present trials with courage.
Sociologist Christian Smith has found that many American Christians have unknowingly embraced Moralistic Therapeutic Deism—a watered-down faith that believes in a distant God who just wants us to be nice. This false faith is incapable of inspiring young men to answer the call to the priesthood. The only answer is to return to Christ—the real Christ.
Pope St. John Paul II once wrote that if Christ is presented as He truly is, young people will respond. They will follow Him, even when His message is demanding, even when it bears the mark of the Cross.
And so, I leave you with this: Any ministry fostering vocations must be anchored in hope. Priests and religious open the doors to hope through their yes, just as Mary did at the Annunciation. No ministry will survive without faith—not the fake faith of our culture, but the true faith professed in the Nicene Creed. And finally, no ministry will succeed without prayer.
So remember: Only those who hope pray.
Thank you very much.
