OAPCE
Fall 2025 message from the Liaison Bishop
✠ Yvan Mathieu, SM
About a month ago, we started a new school year. This first semester also marks the last stretch of the Jubilee year 2025, a year in which the late pope Francis invited us to become pilgrims of hope. A Holy year (or Jubilee year) begins when the pope opens the Holy Door at St. Peter Basilica in Rome. Pope Francis opened the door on Christmas Eve 2024. Pope Leo will close the door on January 6 2026.
“From a symbolic viewpoint, the Holy Door takes on a special significance: it is the most powerful sign of the Jubilee, since the ultimate aim of the pilgrim is to pass through it. […] In crossing the threshold of the Holy Door, the pilgrim is reminded of the passage from chapter 10 of St John’s gospel: ‘I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.’ Passing through the Holy Door expresses the decision to follow and be guided by Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd.”
Last summer, Pope Leo welcomed the young pilgrims, who are the age of your children. On August 3th, as they gathered outside of Rome at the Tor Vergata University, he said to them: “We are […] made […] for an existence that is constantly renewed through the gift of self in love. This is why we continually aspire to something “more” that no created reality can give us; we feel a deep and burning thirst that no drink in this world can satisfy. Knowing this, let us not deceive our hearts by trying to satisfy them with cheap imitations! Let us rather listen to them! Let us turn this thirst into a step stool, like children who stand on tiptoe, in order to peer through the window of encounter with God. We will then find ourselves before him, who is waiting for us, knocking gently on the window of our soul (cf. Rev 3:20). It is truly beautiful, especially at a young age, to open wide your hearts, to allow him to enter, and to set out on this adventure with him towards eternity.”
On January 6th 2026, the Holy Door of the Jubilee Year will be closed. But if I hear well the invitation of pope Leo, to keep the doors of our hearts wide open. The movement will not be the same. During the Jubilee, we are the one passing through the Holy Door. Once the Jubilee will be over, it will be of vital importance to keep our own doors wide open so that Christ himself could enter into our hearts.
“There is a burning question in our hearts, a need for truth that we cannot ignore, which leads us to ask ourselves: what is true happiness? What is the true meaning of life? What can free us from being trapped in meaninglessness, boredom and mediocrity? […] We need to lift our eyes, to look upwards, to the ‘things that are above’ (Col 3:2), to realize that everything in the world has meaning only insofar as it serves to unite us to God and to our brothers and sisters […].”2 In the book of Revelation, Jesus says: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Rev. 3:20) Please keep the door of your heart open. In pope Leo’s words: “Dear young people, aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are. Do not settle for less. Then you will see the light of the Gospel grow every day, within you and around you.”
I share with you as well, the most wonderful news! On August 13th, I attended the General Audience of Pope Leo XIV in the Aula Paolo VI in the Vatican. At the conclusion of the audience, I was able to shake hands with the Pope. Needless to say I prayed for all of you in OAPCE during my pilgrimage.
A blessed school year to you all!
✠ Yvan Mathieu, SM
