Pope, at audience, wraps up Jubilee Year
December 31, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: At his final public audience of 2025, on December 31, Pope Leo XIV looked across at the Jubilee Year and exhorted the faithful to be thankful to God for past blessings and ask the Lord “to renew, in us and around us, in the coming days, the wonders of his grace and mercy.”
The past year, the Pope remarked, has seen memorable days: “Some of them joyful, such as the pilgrimage of so many of the faithful on the occasion of the Holy Year; others painful, such as the passing of the late Pope Francis, and the scenarios of war that continue to convulse the planet.”
Reminding his audience of the traditional singing of the Te Deum on December 31 in thanks for the year’s blessings, the Pope said that the year’s end also is a time for examination of conscience, asking God’s forgiveness for “all the times we have failed to treasure his inspirations and invest the talents he has entrusted to us in the best possible way.”
Reflecting on the pilgrimages that so many Catholics made during the Jubilee Year, the Pope said: “Our whole life is a journey whose final destination transcends space and time.” That journey finds its end “in the encounter with God and in full and eternal communion with Him.”
With that hopeful attitude, the Holy Father encouraged the faithful to join in the thankful praise that marks the year’s end, saying:
God is Love! God loves me! God awaited me, and I have found him! God is mercy! God is forgiveness! God is salvation! God, yes, God is life!The above note supplements, highlights, or corrects details in the original source (link above). About CWN news coverage.
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