Pilgrims of Hope: Beating at the Rhythm of Christ’s Heart

By: Maria del Mar Muñoz-Visoso, M.T.S.| Executive Director, Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, USCCB

In a prior column, I reflected on the Holy Father’s call to become Pilgrims of Hope during this Jubilee Year 2025. But with so much happening in the world —fires and other natural and human-made disasters and accidents, unending wars, political polarization, civil unrest and loss of confidence in our public institutions, egregious violations of human life and dignity, and, more disturbingly, the lack of any sense of compassion or a true understanding of the common good on the part of some of our leaders and legislators— it is tempting to fall into despair. 

People say, ‘How can you speak of hope with everything that is going on?’  But God’s time is never an accident. His love for us is always Providential. The Lord knows what we need in each moment and turns his merciful heart towards us, inviting us to abide in his love, which also means loving and sharing the Good News with others around us. 

We will do good, as pilgrims of hope called to be witnesses of God’s love in the world, to immerse ourselves in some prayer and reflection about the true meaning of Christian love. Pope Francis offers us a beautiful, deep, calm and extensive reflection on the human and divine love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a love of which we are the undeserving recipients, and that we are called to imitate.  We need “missionaries who are themselves in love and who, enthralled by Christ, feel bound to share this love that has changed their lives” (Dilexit nos, 209). Christ’s Sacred Heart, says the Holy Father, “is a synthesis of the Gospel” (DN 83). And quoting St. John Paul II, he reminds us that “through the witness of Christians, ‘love will be poured into human hearts, to build up the body of Christ, which is the Church, and to build a society of justice, peace and fraternity” (DN 206).

As Pope Francis writes in his Letter to the U.S. Catholic Bishops, “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

Only by allowing God’s love to transform us, and by feeling and acting with the heart of Christ, is that Christians will be able to offer a convincing testimony that is capable of bringing hope to a broken world and transform it from within.