The words of Pope Francis to the Cardinals in his homily during the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and in his message for the World Peace workshop are useful to all the faithful. A new year is beginning and, this time, a Jubilee year! What does it have in store for us and how should we walk in it?

In his homily during the consistory for the creation of the new cardinals (December 7, 2024), Pope Francis presents the ascent of Jesus to Jerusalem and the attitude of the disciples. "While Jesus travels an exhausting and uphill path that will lead him to Calvary, the disciples think of the flat and downhill path of the victorious Messiah." 

We should not be scandalized, adds the Pope, quoting Manzoni, because "such are the contradictions of the human heart", that is how it is made. But we must be attentive to follow the way of Jesus. 

This means, in the first place, "toreturn to him and put him back at the center of everything". For in both the spiritual and pastoral life, "we always need to return to the center, to recover the foundation, to strip ourselves of what is superfluous in order to clothe ourselves with Christ (cf. Rom 13:14)"(cf. Rom 13:14).

Secondly, it means "cultivating a passion for the meeting," because Jesus never walks alone: "His union with the Father does not isolate him from the vicissitudes and pain of the world. On the contrary, because he came into the world to heal the wounds and lighten the burden of the human heart, to remove the burden of sin and break the chains of slavery. Therefore: "What should animate your service as cardinals is the risk of the journey, the joy of meeting with others and the care of the most fragile".  

Thirdly and finally, to follow the way of Jesus also means "to be builders of communion and unity", because that was Jesus' mission statement .

For this reason, the Successor of Peter tells the Cardinals, fixing his gaze on them and taking into account their diverse histories and cultures, which represent the catholicity of the Church: "The Lord calls you to be witnesses of fraternity, artisans of communion and builders of unity. This is your mission statement.

On the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (December 8, 2024), the Pope celebrated Mass with the new cardinals. In his homily, he invited them to focus on three aspects, three dimensions of beauty in Mary's life: as daughter, as bride and as mother.

The Immaculate as a daughter. Although the texts do not speak to us of her childhood, they present her to us as a young woman rich in faith, humble and simple. "She is the 'virgin' (cf. Lk 1:27), in whose gaze is reflected the love of the Father and in whose pure heart, gratuitousness and gratitude are the color and perfume of holiness. (...) For Mary's life is a continuous self-giving.

The second dimension of her beauty is that of bride, because she is "the one whom God chose as a companion for his project of salvation" (cf. Lumen Gentium, 61). This also means, Francis points out, that "there is no salvation without woman because the Church is also woman". She answered yes, "I am the handmaid of the Lord" (Lk 1:38). 

"'Servant," Francis observes, "not in the sense of 'submissive' and 'humiliated,' but as a 'reliable' and 'esteemed' person, to whom the Lord entrusts the most precious treasures and the most important missions. (This, it should be noted, should be characteristic of every Christian, more to the extent of the awareness of one's vocation and mission statement).

Hence her beauty "revealsa new aspect: that of the fidelity, loyalty and care that characterize the reciprocal love of spouses". This is how St. John Paul II sees it when he writes that the Immaculate "has accepted the choice for Mother of the Son of God, guided by spousal love, which 'consecrates' a human person totally to God" (Encyclical Redemptoris Mater, 39). (Attention, because Francis is describing the substance of spousal love).

And finally, the third dimension of beauty, that of mother. In fact, we always represent her with her children in the various circumstances of her life. "Here the Immaculate is beautiful in her fruitfulness, that is, in her knowing how to die in order to give life, in her forgetting herself in order to care for the one who, small and defenseless, clings to her." (This is undoubtedly a vocation to motherhood, including the so-called "spiritual motherhood").

However," the successor of Peter points out, "there is a risk that we may consider Mary's beauty as something distant, too lofty, unattainable. 

But Mary is a real, attainable and concrete model . And in fact, we receive this beauty in seed with baptism. "And with her we are entrusted with the call to cultivate it, like the Virgin, with filial, spousal and maternal love, grateful in receiving and generous in giving, men and women of 'thank you' and 'yes', said with words, but above all with life." 

The message for the 2025 World Peace workshop ("Forgive us our trespasses, grant us peace") is part of the ordinary Jubilee that has just begun. It has four parts.

Above all, we are invited to "listen to the cry of humanity threatened" by so many injustices that are the result of sins (John Paul II spoke of the "Structures sin"(Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, 36). It is fitting that "all of us, together and personally, feel called to break the chains of injustice and thus proclaim God's justice" (n. 4).

The second part calls for "A cultural change: we are all debtors". "The cultural and structural change to overcome this crisis will come about when we finally recognize that we are all children of the Father and, before Him, we all confess that we are all debtors, but also all necessary, necessary to one another" (n. 8). 

Thirdly, Francis makes three concrete proposals: 1) "a B if not a total cancellation, of the international debt that burdens the destiny of many nations" (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Ineunte, 51); 2) "the elimination of the death penalty in all nations" (cfr. Bull Spes non confundit, for the Jubilee of 2025, 10); and 3) "the establishment of a world fund to definitively eliminate hunger" and to facilitate sustainable development in the poorest countries, in contrast to climate change (cf. Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti, 262 and other recent interventions of the Pope). 

The last part is entitled "The goal of peace". This involves a profound and practical change of attitudes at the staff and social level, a "disarmament of the heart" (John XXIII)."Sometimes, something simple is enough, such as 'a smile, a gesture of friendship, a brotherly look, a sincere listening, a free service'" (n. 14 of the message; cf. Spes non confundit, 18). For, "in effect, peace is not achieved only with the end of war, but with the beginning of a new world, a world in which we discover that we are different, more united and more brothers than we had imagined.".