Many brothers and sisters of the community from around the world have strongly emphasized, especially at the last Prayer and Election Assembly in the summer of 2023, the need for a pastoral conversion of our community through a new outreach and compassion to the world today, especially towards the poorest and towards those who do not know the love of God. The International Council, together with the General Moderator, would like to make this appeal to all the brothers and sisters of the community, especially now on the way to the Holy Year 2025. It is about nothing less than a renewal of our roots, about a new fire, about our heart-to-heart relationship with Jesus, which we also want to live as a heart-to-heart relationship with the suffering people of our day, especially those who do not know about God. Evangelization out of unconditional love! All of this coincides with Pope Francis’ tireless calls to engage in a spirit of dialogue and in a culture of encounter at this time; to go to the peripheries, and to open our doors widely and generously, to practice hospitality.

“The difficulty is not to feed the poor, clothe the naked, accompany the sick, but to realize that the poor, the naked, the prisoner, the homeless person has the dignity to sit with us at our table, to feel ‘at home’ with us, to be part of the family. This is a sign that the kingdom of heaven is among us”. Pope Francis

Getting to know the heartbeat of Jesus anew for all people today

We must not forget that, from the very beginning, Pierre Goursat linked the outpouring of the Holy Spirit directly to love for the poor: “Jesus asks us to show the gentleness and tenderness of his heart to all people with all the means he has given us”. He invited us to encounter the wounded world: “If we allow our hearts to be wounded, a crack can appear in our hearts if we allow ourselves to be touched by those who are suffering.” The Spirit of God, his merciful love, is always poured out through the ‘pierced’ heart. After all, his heart was pierced by the wounds, suffering, and sins of this world. It is important for all people today to get to know this heartbeat of Jesus anew, to connect with it, and to see the countless “pierced” hearts in our surroundings, to love them concretely and without judgement.

In 2025, the entire Church will celebrate the Jubilee of Hope. This Jubilee is a welcome opportunity for a new beginning, a renewed vigor for conversion and mission. We propose that the whole community live a generous and fraternal Holy Year 2025 and that we prepare ourselves concretely for it. Encouraged by the Pope’s repeated call to allow all people – especially the poorest, the most vulnerable of today – to share generously in our table fellowship, the community could thus invite a genuine diversity of initiatives to promote the most varied forms of encounter and dialogue with the peripheries. These initiatives can be lived in great freedom, because this is a special time that should encourage creativity. And all this could take place around tables that create a home, following the example of Jesus, for whom meals were real moments of encounter (cf. Mt 9:10-13 / Lk 7:36-50 / Lk 19:5-10 / Lk 14:12-14).

To this end, let’s not be afraid to throw our habits overboard a little in order to create the conditions for a genuine personal and communal conversion (also in the organization of our house communities and the community weekends), in order to “expand” our “contact surface” with the world, so that this does not result in “additional” activities.

Time of personal preparation until Christmas 2024

Encouraged by the grace of the 350th anniversary of the apparition of the Heart of Jesus in Paray le Monial, we first of all invite everyone to take time to “rest” on the Heart of Jesus. Simply time with Him in the time of adoration, and above all, with increased intercession for the wounded of our time. Two questions can help us personally and during community encounters in this time of preparation:

1. What would be my “dream” of a generous fraternity? Who would I like to meet or invite who is completely “different” and lives differently?

2. What helps me to realize this dream in community life? What hinders me?

During this preparation time, everyone can take a first step and specifically invite someone, e.g. someone they have never invited before, or have someone invite them. From now on, we will collect testimonies from all over the world to encourage and inspire each other and to unite us even more in joy.

The Holy Year 2025, a celebration of hospitality – “Heart to heart with the world”

At Christmas 2024, we will enter this jubilee of hope with the whole Church. We would like to invite you to celebrate it in such a way to practice hospitality with great freedom and generosity and invite many to our tables, just as we allow ourselves to be invited to the tables of others. We want to give preference in every respect to those who are in need or in distress in so many ways today or who are simply very “different” from us. These can be small and large meal communities, wherever they are: at home, at community meetings, and in the periphery. In the joy of being Jesus’ friends, we can be friends with people, whether they are believers or not, whether they are migrants, whether they suffer from abuse or carry another burden, whether they share our values or not.

The Holy Father passionately asks us to make peace in this Holy Year, to ask for forgiveness and to help build the great global brotherhood. Especially as those gifted with a community, we want to take more courageous steps towards openness and allow many to share in the experience of being brothers and sisters. We also want to work together with others and to be willing to learn from others. In particular, we want to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us to places where we can share in the wounds of this time.

Jesus himself entered a “perfect communion of destiny with the lost”. His way is “entering into the drama of human existence” and this is the “true holiness of God, which is love. Love that does not remain in the aristocratic distance of the untouchably pure… Holiness is not separation, but union, not judgement, but redeeming love”  Pope Benedict XVI

The year 2026 as a reflection and the consequences of the learning processes

During this jubilee year, we will take initiatives and have new missionary experiences that will be “learning places for dialogue”. We will let the Lord surprise us with the new paths He will show us. But after the Holy Year, we will have to take an even closer and more structured look at the consequences we draw from these learning processes: Identify what has moved us, both personally and in our understanding of the community charism. Recognizing together, but at the level of each community reality, what needs to be renewed in order to live more faithfully our call to be in the world without being of the world. We will carry out these renewals and conversions, each at our own level, but also in a synodal way in the community.

We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for every step that makes us pilgrims of hope for the world!

Let us enter this jubilee of hope with enthusiasm!