VATICAN CITY — During the Holy Year 2025, which is centered on proclaiming a message of hope, Pope Francis told future priests to let hope be the guiding principle of their lives.
“In the journey of life, we could identify hope as the signpost that marks our itinerary,” he said during a meeting with seminarians from Córdoba, Spain, Jan. 17.
Hope provides a direction in the lives of Christians, leading them “toward heaven, to the definitive encounter with Jesus,” the pope said. “Not to the top positions, not to the most comfortable places; those are dead ends that, if we have the misfortune of getting into, we must leave by walking backward with effort and shame.”
Referencing the theme of the Jubilee, Pope Francis encouraged the seminarians to be “pilgrims of hope,” and to draw inspiration from St. Pelagius, a 10th-century Christian martyr who was killed in Córdoba at the age of 13 and is celebrated there today.
He was taken hostage by Moors in southern Spain and held captive for three years. When the emir of Córdoba offered him freedom on the condition he convert to Islam, Pelagius refused, and he was tortured and killed.
“You can bear witness to hope as that holy boy did then, in the midst of the pain of war, of the cruelty most unworthy of human beings, armed with the helmet of hope,” the pope told the seminarians. “You can persevere in the way of the Lord, convinced that Jesus will always sustain you and will give us the strength to be sowers of hope.”
Pope Francis also urged the seminarians to be sustained by Jesus on the path of life, a journey which led them to Rome to cross the threshold of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, and “to feel the presence of the one who is our only hope.”
