Official Start of the Jubilee 2025 in Mongolia

2024-12-30

The Catholic Church celebrates an anniversary every twenty-five years, which is called a “Jubilee Year”. According to tradition; the Jubilee Year which will fall in 2025, was officially opened by Pope Francis on December 24th , 2024, with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. And on Sunday, December 29th each Cathedral was scheduled to celebrate the opening celebration Mass of the Jubilee Year by the local bishops. Thus, Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, the head of the Catholic Church in Mongolia, celebrated the opening of the Jubilee Year with all the faithful at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Ulaanbaatar on December 29th 2024 during the Feast of the Holy Family.

In his sermon, he drew on the story of Mary and Joseph, who were unable to find Jesus, they searched for Him in their hearts and finally found Him in the church, reminding us to rediscover the nature and reason for our faith through the challenges we face, and emphasized the importance of being open to the blessings of the Jubilee Year and undergoing spiritual renewal. Nevertheless, he invited all the faithful to pray for the growth of the Catholic faith in Mongolia as well as to renew their active participation in the church.

Feast of the Holy Family

December 29, 2924

Official Start of the Jubilee 2025 in Mongolia

The Gospel page we have just heard conveys a singular episode in the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth. At the age of 12, the little Jesus is taken to Jerusalem for the Jewish Passover, as per tradition; but in the confusion of the feast, he remains behind without Mary and Joseph noticing. So they have to go back on his trail and when they find him among the temple doctors, they are astonished. Even more astonished is the answer he gives them, so much so that they do not understand it. Mary, however, carefully keeps everything in her heart. Why does Luke's Gospel report this episode and not others? Of Jesus' childhood this is the only glimpse we have. It is as if it were a crucial moment, which has something important to indicate to our journey of faith today as well.

First, let us recall that this day was chosen by the late Bishop Padilla as a specific feast of the Church in Mongolia. He, a pioneer of evangelization in this Country, liked to think of us as a family of believers in Christ, who entrust themselves to the Holy Family of Nazareth. Honouring his memory, we want to listen to the message that this Gospel passage offers us. We could summarise it like this: losing Jesus in order to find him again on a deeper level. This was the experience of Mary and Joseph who, in anguish, searched for Jesus. And when they find him, they almost rebuke him. In return, they hear these words from the baby Jesus: ‘Why were you looking for me?’.

Let us pause on this essential question: ‘Why do we seek Jesus’? Why did we choose to become Catholic? What prompted us to take this step? Certainly, something about Him attracted us and we felt like following Him. Perhaps it was the example of a missionary or the beautiful human and spiritual climate experienced in our communities; or some practical advantage that seemed convenient to us. Life, however, constantly tests us and asks us to verify our choices. If we have decided to follow Jesus only for some material interest, we soon realize that this is not enough; when we are faced with the anxieties of life, we need deep motivations, moral and spiritual reference points that material interest alone does not give us.

Or perhaps people have changed in the meantime; there is no longer that missionary or that friend who made us discover the beauty of the Church, and we feel less attracted to those who are there now. Well, now is the time to go deep, to the root of our choices: why am I following Jesus? Why do I attend Church? For a time, I thought I ‘had the answers in my pocket’, that I could manage faith according to my needs, as perhaps - quite innocently - Mary and Joseph had experienced. The baby Jesus lived with them, everything proceeded in the repetitiveness of the usual rhythms, but that time, not finding him in the group returning from Jerusalem, they were frightened.

Three days lasted their anguish, just like the three days of the Lord's passion and death. And when they find Him again, they are invited to take a step forward and deeper, which at the moment they do not understand. The Gospel says: ‘But they did not understand what he had said to them’. It is possible that we too at this moment do not fully understand what is happening. The Catholic Church in Mongolia will soon be 33 years old; society around us is changing at a dizzying pace; we are growing and the needs of our families are multiplying…

It is therefore time for us too to ask ourselves this question: ‘Why do we seek the Lord?’ Or perhaps: Are we still seeking the Lord, or do we get entangled in problems, almost always of a relational nature, to the point where we begin to doubt the validity of the choice of faith we made years ago, perhaps getting angry because the missionaries we work with are not what we would like?

Today the time of grace of the Jubilee opens for us. What is it if not the opportunity to take these fundamental questions seriously again, to rediscover the essentials of our faith? Every 25 years the Church feels the need to stop and reconsider the treasure of grace by which she lives: the redemption wrought by Christ. And so the Church, true Mother, turns to her children scattered all over the earth, offering them extraordinary means to (re)discover the meaning of everything: Christ Jesus, true God and true man, has opened for us the road to eternal life; he has taken upon himself our sins and made us free, children of God, capable of already living the new life transfigured in love, in the gift of self for others.

In a word, the Church with this jubilee reminds us of the hope that is in us: ‘Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’ (Rom 5:5). Christ is the door we symbolically passed through at the beginning of this celebration. He is the living water that washed us on the day of our Baptism and that continues to gush in our hearts, especially if we feed it with prayer and works of fraternal charity. It is the fire that seals us in Confirmation, sending us out into the world as witnesses of the Risen One. It is the bread from Heaven that makes us diners at the banquet of new life, offered to us every time we celebrate the Eucharist. He is the Redeemer who awaits us in the confessional every time we want to ‘empty the sack’ of our sins in the wonderful sacrament of Reconciliation. He is the one who blesses the love of a man and a woman who freely decide to give themselves to each other in eternal fidelity, in the sacrament of Marriage. He is the one and eternal Priest who associates men to himself to make them his instruments in the sacrament of Order. He is the divine physician who alleviates our sufferings with the sacrament of the Anointing of the sick.

To be able to fully rediscover this immense gift we have as Christians, the Church envisages more abundant means of grace at our disposal this year. One of these is the pilgrimage that takes the faithful through the doors of the Roman basilicas in faith; but this is only one and not the most essential of the means we have. All of us, in fact, even without physically going to Rome, will have the possibility of obtaining what the Church calls an ‘indulgence’, that is, ‘the remission before God of the temporal punishment for sins, already remitted as to guilt’ through the sacrament of reconciliation. Also, by coming to our cathedral, participating in the Eucharist, making a good confession and praying according to the Holy Father's intentions, the faithful can receive this special gift of grace designed especially for the Jubilee. In addition, participation in spiritual retreats and formative meetings organized by the Prefecture and especially works of mercy are also considered instruments for obtaining the gift of indulgence. On these aspects, teaching tools and material will be made available to parishes for personal use to make the most of this time of grace.

In conclusion, dear brothers and sisters, let us return to the Gospel text, which shows us in Mary the right attitude, to be imitated throughout this year: to keep all things in our heart with faith. ‘His Mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew...’. In this way Jesus will also grow in us, he will become that sure friend to lean on in every circumstance of life. In this way we above all will grow, renewing our commitment to involve ourselves personally in the building of the believing community. We need this so much!

May everyone seize the grace of the Jubilee and put it at the service of community growth. The Church in Mongolia needs holy and responsible believers! Let us leave aside complaints, polemics, harsh criticism; let us decide for Christ and give the best of ourselves for the life of the Church. Let us pray for holy and fervent vocations to the priesthood among the young men of our communities, for the gift of consecration for men and women of this country, for enthusiastic catechists to sustain community life. The change for the better that everyone desires will only come about with the contribution of each one, in humility and docility to the teachings of the Church. Happy Church Day in Mongolia and a Happy Jubilee Year to all.

Card. Giorgio Marengo, I.M.C.