Hundreds of faithful gathered at Christ the King Cathedral in Johannesburg for the Closing Mass of the Jubilee Year of Hope, celebrated on the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Presiding at the liturgy, Cardinal Stephen Brislin reflected on the past year as a shared pilgrimage of faith and issued a renewed call for families to become living signs of hope in a world searching for meaning.

The Jubilee Year of Hope, proclaimed by Pope Francis in 2024 under the motto “Pilgrims of Hope,” was opened in particular Churches on 29 December 2024. While Pope Leo XIV will formally conclude the Ordinary Jubilee by closing the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on 6 January 2026, the celebration in Johannesburg marked a profound moment of thanksgiving and recommitment for the local Church.

In his homily, Cardinal Brislin reminded the faithful that the end of the Jubilee Year does not mean the end of hope. Rather, it signals a new phase of the mission. Catholics, he said, are called to move from being “pilgrims of hope” to becoming “apostles of hope… messengers and instruments through whom God brings hope into the world.”

Reflecting on contemporary society, the Archbishop of Johannesburg spoke of a world “yearning for hope, thirsting for truth, and hungry for meaning,” yet often misled by superficiality, materialism, and false promises. True hope, he insisted, cannot be placed in what is passing and fragile, but only in God, who alone is enduring.  “If we do not have God in our lives,” he asked, “what can we hope for?”

Celebrating the closing of the Jubilee on the Feast of the Holy Family was deeply significant, Cardinal Brislin said, because family lies at the heart of faith and society. “Families are meant to be places of hope,” he affirmed. The family, he explained, is the “foundation of society” and the primary place where faith and hope are transmitted — not only through words, but through prayer, example, fidelity, and love lived daily. “If there are happy and strong families, there will be a happy and strong society,” said Cardinal Brislin.

The 69-year-old Cardinal underlined that Christian hope is sustained through fidelity: fidelity to God, to one another — especially within families — and to oneself by living according to Gospel values. Faith, he said, is not merely a set of doctrines, but a lived relationship with Christ, “it is a lived experience, it is the purpose of all we do, of all we hope for.”

Looking ahead, Cardinal Brislin urged Catholics to resist injustice, anonymity, and systems that diminish human dignity. As apostles of hope, believers must not remain silent in the face of evil, but advocate “for the dignity of each and every person, especially those who are powerless, vulnerable and weak.”

At the end of the homily, Cardinal Brislin entrusted families and the Church to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying that “our Mother Mary, whose heart was filled with love for God, her Son, and the world, inspire us and intercede for us that we may be true to our calling as Christians.”

Toward the end of Mass, Cardinal Brislin led the congregation in a prayer of thanksgiving for the Jubilee Year of Hope. He then invited the faithful to sing a hymn of thanksgiving, focusing their gaze on Jesus on the Cross. As the hymn concluded, heavy rain poured down for some minutes — a moment many recognised, in the African context, as a sign of blessings. Shortly afterwards, as the liturgy ended, the rain gave way to sunshine, leaving worshippers with a powerful symbol of hope renewed.