On January 10, 2026, as the Jubilee of Hope concluded, the Year of Saint Francis began to commemorate the eighth centenary of the saint’s passing. The hope of the Jubilee is now transformed, as proclaimed by the Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary which inaugurated the Year of Saint Francis, “into one of zeal and fervor and love in action.”
Over these next twelve months, I want to offer in this monthly publication as many useful elements as possible to animate the Year of Francis, because alongside the liturgical and sacramental dimension, we are calling for a more personal, communal, and societal transformation.
From January 2nd to 9th, I was with our brothers in Pakistan, visiting villages inhabited by very poor tribes. Yet, in the midst of that poverty, I breathed in genuine joy, warm hospitality, and a generosity that knows no bounds. I was taken into poor homes and welcomed as one of the family. They continually offered to share with me what little they had, always with smiles that have stayed with me.
I celebrated the Eucharist with Christian communities who are a fervent minority in an Islamic country. Embracing their faith is a risky daily choice. They pray with intensity and sing with a joy that comes from deep within.
What I experienced there did not romanticize poverty. The conditions that need to be transformed remain urgent: Clean water, education, health care, fair labor, social justice. Our brothers are working tirelessly toward improving these things since they see it as an essential part of the Franciscan mission.
But there’s something more to experience there: the hope that comes from faith in Christ and illuminates poverty from within. It is not a generic hope, but a certainty rooted in the heart that God does not abandon his children. It's the same hope that motivated Francis when he stripped himself of everything.
This hope doesn't deny suffering, but passes through it. The person of hope does not hide his or her tears, but allows them to be transformed. Hope does not close its eyes to injustice, but finds the strength to resist and build. It is precisely that “hope which does not disappoint” (Romans 5:5).
The Jubilee decree reminds us that our times “are not very different from the times in which Francis lived.” The Year of Francis asks us to move from being pilgrims of hope to being witnesses of “zeal and fervor of active charity.” It’s not enough to have walked through the holy doors. Now we are called to live out that hope and show it to the world by concrete acts of love.
The Christians of Pakistan, a passionate minority living in a Muslim land, remind us that faith is not only lived out when it is comfortable, but when it comes at a cost. The genuine joy they share even in the midst of their great poverty, their generosity in the face of destitution, their hope in insecurity make them true living witnesses to Francis.
As we begin this special year, I wonder: What hope is within us? How can we keep hope awake and alive? What concrete steps can we take to “detach ourselves from every sin,” from our self-centered “ego,” in order to turn towards Christ and with him towards those we meet along the way?
The Year of Francis, eight hundred years after his death, must become a year of conversion, in which we learn from the poor what it means to hope against all hope, in which our fraternal life becomes a witness that Christian hope is alive and “does not disappoint.”