November's Hope

The Jubilee Year of Hope has been a tremendous time of grace for the whole Church. Throughout the many gatherings of the faithful in Rome from various age groups, vocational paths, and spiritualities, the one focus of this Jubilee Year has been the Person of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. He is our hope!
 
In his homily at the Mass for the Jubilee of Youth in Tor Vergata on August 3, 2025, Pope Leo XIV proclaimed, “Dear young people. It is he (Jesus Christ), as Saint John Paul II said, ‘who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives…to commit…to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal’ (XV World Youth Day, Prayer Vigil, 19 August 2000). Let us remain united to him, let us remain in his friendship, always, cultivating it through prayer, adoration, Eucharistic Communion, frequent Confession, and generous charity, following the examples of Blessed PierGiorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis who will soon be declared saints.”
 
We can only know our true hope when we know Jesus. It is He who teaches us who we have been created to be—saints, that is, sons and daughters of the Father who are redeemed by the Blood of Jesus and called to become more and more like Him.
 
In the month of November, the Church gives us two feast days to strengthen our hope that we can become more and more like Jesus, Our Savior.
 
First, we have the Feast of All Saints on November 1. This feast day celebrates all those men and women who cooperated with God’s grace in their lives and became united with Christ in the Mystery of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. From every walk of life, from every nation, from every age, the saints have shown us that holiness is possible for every one of us with the help of God’s grace and with the merits of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. The Feast of All Saints is a feast of hope for us that shows us our destiny—to be face to face with God in heaven in the Communion of Saints. It is the great family to which we belong in eternal bliss forever. It tells us that what we suffer here on earth is worthwhile, for, when we unite our own pain and sufferings with the sufferings of Christ, it leads us to heaven.
 
The Feast of All Souls follows the Feast of All Saints on November 2. The occurrence of these two great feasts, one succeeding the other on the Church’s calendar, is not by happenstance. Rather, they show that when someone may not enter immediately into the Kingdom of Heaven after death, God’s love and mercy provides for us a way for us to be cleansed from sin and the effects of sin which would prevent this entrance. This is a source of great hope. Even when we have not achieved perfect holiness by the time we die, God is not outdone in His mercy. He prepares us for our destiny to be with Him forever.
 
In his wisdom, Pope Leo speaks to young people and, indeed, to all of us in telling us how to be close to and united with Jesus, who is the hope of the world. He stresses to us that we must deepen our friendship, our union with Jesus by prayer, adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, receiving Him in Holy Communion, frequent Confession, and acts of charity. He then refers to two new recently canonized saints, Piergiorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis. Our Holy Father is saying to us, “Be filled with hope! What the saints have done in their friendship with Jesus, you, too, can do and then come into the Kingdom!”
 
Dear friends, many people in our area have committed themselves to living in deep union with Our Lord as Pope Leo has taught us. Many are coming to daily Mass, receiving Holy Communion, going regularly to Confession, spending time in Adoration of the Eucharistic Lord, and serving the poor in their various needs. One group of people who lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters exercising great charity are those who are involved in Pro-Life Movement. They do great deeds of mercy not just in October, Respect Life Month, but all year long. By their prayers, by their fidelity in coming to Planned Parenthood to lovingly offer alternatives to women seeking abortions, by their witness of love for the unborn children and their mothers, they have deepened their relationship with Jesus and have sought to grow in holiness. In their great care for others, they have glorified God and have served the most vulnerable, the littlest ones, unborn children, in our midst. They have been prayer warriors and witnesses to the Gospel of life and love. They have performed great acts of charity to those who are materially poor and spiritually poor, to those on the margins of society, and to those who have lost hope. They have been the hands, the heart, and the voice of Jesus to mothers in desperate situations and their unborn babies who are in such danger. They have drawn ever closer to the Heart of Jesus and the Communion of Saints! May God bless and reward them for what they have done! They are my inspiration and my heroes!
 
Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh