ROMA.- The beginning of a new year always brings with it the feeling of a new beginning, a favorable occasion to make good resolutions with the hope of achieving positive changes in our lives. In the Catholic Church, Pope Francis decided to dedicate 2024 to prayer, since it is the year of preparation for the ordinary Jubilee or Holy Year called by the Holy See for 2025, which begins next December 24 with the traditional opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica.
This was recalled by the Pontiff last December 31 during the homily of First Vespers and the Te Deum in St. Peter’s Basilica, inviting the faithful to prepare through prayer for the celebration of the Jubilee that he called “Pilgrims of the hope”. “And what better teacher than our Holy Mother? Let us learn from her to live every day, every moment, every occupation of hers with her inner gaze turned toward Jesus,” he explained.
But what is the Jubilee and why is prayer so important? To understand it, Diario Las Américas interviewed Father Ricardo Reyes Castillo, one of the two Panamanian priests who work in the Vatican, Doctor in Sacred Liturgy and author of numerous books, including What is the Mass? (available in Amazon).
– Father, what is the Jubilee?
The Jubilee is a time granted by the Church every 25 years and sometimes there are extraordinary Jubilee during that period, and they are times of the Lord’s mercy towards us. It is a time to stop in our lives and see where we are going. It is a time to seek the Lord, perhaps when we are further away and we get lost, we have a great opportunity to find meaning in what we live or to find a light in the darkness that we have to face in our lives. So the Jubilee and this year, which is going to be 2025, is going to be a year of mercy that the Universal Church celebrates.
– In this sense, Pope Francis recommended that this year 2024 be dedicated to prayer in preparation for the Jubilee. How can we take refuge in prayer?
The problem is that many times we have an idea of prayer as something schematic, like formulas that have nothing to do with our life. Instead, prayer is actually a dialogue with God, a perfect dialogue of love.
We believe that we have been created in the image and likeness of God, so we have been created to live a deep relationship with God. So prayer is something much deeper, it is letting God speak to our hearts and has a deep relationship with the Jubilee, which is the meaning of life that is manifested in forgiveness and his mercy; That is why entering into dialogue with God is letting ourselves be amazed by the divine being that manifests itself in our lives.
– You assure that “the Mass is the prayer par excellence” and you are the author of the book “What is the mass?” How can the Mass help us in this dialogue with God?
We are poorly educated about the true meaning of the gestures and formulas of the Mass. We know almost nothing, perhaps we know things about the Bible and the life of Jesus, but in truth little has been explained to us about what we do during Mass. On the other hand, I think it is very important for us to understand it. In the Church there have been thousands of men and women who have given their lives to defend the Eucharist (the Mass) because in it there is something that is immense, there is a real, authentic encounter, the point is to discover what that encounter is like. As in any language, I must have the basic notions of that language; So if we believe that Jesus Christ wanted to remain among us, we have to know the meaning of the words, of the gestures, to be able to communicate in an authentic way with him.
– And that is what your book is about, it explains in a simple way the meaning of life through the structure of the Mass, to improve that daily dialogue with God. Tell us about the book.
It is a book that is born from my twenty years of experience studying the Eucharist and the Liturgy, that is why I have a great need to transmit the beauty of the Eucharist, because I think that it is fundamental that when the priest says “the Lord be with you” the faithful know what it refers to, what all those formulas that are made mean, understand its beauty and meet God in the end. In the Eucharist the death and resurrection of Christ are truly present, and the only thing that gives meaning to our lives is experiencing eternity, because only if heaven truly exists can we live today without the terror of tomorrow. That is what we hope for, to be able to find the eternity of God that is made present through the Eucharist, that is what gives meaning to our lives.
– It is that hope to which this ordinary Jubilee invites us, under the motto “Pilgrims of Hope”…
Exactly, it is a time in which we have to ask ourselves about our own life, where we want to go; It is also a time to pray for the Church, because we all need to reunite with the Lord. This Jubilee is so that we can all truly have an encounter of mercy and forgiveness with Jesus Christ.
