ACI Prensa Staff, 03 January, 2025 / 8:20 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis on Friday welcomed a group of children and young people from the Italian Union of Blind and Partially Sighted People in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, encouraging them to be pilgrims of hope during the 2025 Jubilee Year.
At the beginning of his Jan. 3 audience, the Holy Father encouraged those present to repeat the “Pilgrims of Hope” theme of the 2025 Jubilee, getting louder and louder each time until he was satisfied with their enthusiastic response and congratulated them with a “bravo!”
Pope Francis then encouraged them to be “people on the journey” who always have the desire to continue, “never stopping, never arriving, always with the desire to move forward.”
In his talk, the pontiff recalled that a pilgrim is more than a traveler, because he has a particular goal: “A holy place, which draws him, which motivates him, which sustains him in his fatigue.”
In the case of the ordinary Jubilee of 2025, he said, the goal is a Holy Door “that allows us to enter into new life, free from the slavery of sin, free to love and serve God and neighbor.”
