In the Roman Canon of the Catholic Mass, we speak of “the catholic and apostolic faith.” It is a faith grounded in the firm belief that the eternal Son of God became man and dwelt among us, and by His Passion, Death, and Resurrection ransomed us from Hell and opened for us the hope of eternal life in Him. And so, there is nothing more awesome or powerful than the universal and apostolically grounded faith that lives, holds, and passes on the saving mystery of Jesus Christ.
As the Church has been entrusted with these mysteries, she has a vast and inexhaustible supernatural treasury. It is a treasury that is guided by the Holy Spirit and contains the holy sacraments, especially the Holy Sacrifice of the New Covenant, the written Word of God, the Sacred Tradition orally passed from one generation to the next, the teachings of the early Fathers, the writings of the saints, and the testimony of the martyrs.
The Church’s treasury also contains her intellectual and artistic traditions. Such traditions include treatises, essays, poems, sacred music, sculptures, paintings, mosaics, and other expressions of sacred art. They contain experiences and depictions, symbols, and other representations of the things of God. Without question, the supernatural treasury of the Church is magnificent, beautiful, and filled with divine splendor on every level.
Such an array of truth and beauty, therefore, calls for serious discernment when it comes to applying the supernatural treasury to the life and traditions of the Church. The Church must exercise the wisdom of the master of a household who “brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). As something new is brought forward, it must complement and organically flow from what was before it. Like a master of a household, the Church must be cautious about innovation or eclectic creativity. The old and the new must flow together and always point to the mystery of Jesus Christ and His saving work among us.
As the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025 approaches, the Church is given an opportunity to manifest Jesus Christ, announce salvation in Him alone, show the glory of His way of love, and highlight the splendors of the supernatural treasury that flow from our faith in Him.
And so, when Pope Francis announced that the Jubilee 2025 would be a Jubilee of Hope, it fit – and showed wisdom. Our fallen world has forgotten hope. The false hope that humanity has put in itself, in its political structures, in the market, and in the passing things of our world has only brought disappointment and bred desolation. People have become suspicious of hope, and so a Jubilee of Hope is exactly what our world needs.
A Jubilee of Hope is an immense opportunity to teach about hope, clarify the wayward and incomplete hopes of our day, to point to the love and providence of God in the good things and the bad, to explain the meaning of the Paschal Mystery to a world that thinks it knows but does not, to stress the connection between love and suffering, to highlight the call to redemptive suffering, to give examples of redemptive suffering from among our holy ones, to share the testimonies of the martyrs, to talk about the joys of Heaven and the pains of Hell, and in all other ways to develop and announce to the world: “Christ Jesus, our Hope.” (1 Timothy 1:1)
From such teaching, we have the opportunity to introduce and celebrate symbols and representations of hope from the supernatural treasury of the Church. We can point to the Cross itself, or the rooster of Saint Peter’s repentance, or to the palm branches of victory carried by the holy martyrs, or to the grill and humor of Saint Lawrence, or the anchor of Saint Clement (or Saint Barbara), or in more contemporary times, the blue-and-white prison uniform of Saint Maximillian Kolbe, or the Star of David of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). The possibilities are endless, but the moment is fleeting. Prudence is needed in the selection of the messaging and symbols for the Jubilee.
With so many possibilities and the topic of hope being so pivotal, imagine the disbelief and the surprise when the Church puts her energies behind a “mascot,” and presents – not the Cross, or palm branches, or the anchor – but a peculiar anime character named “Luce” as the mascot for the Jubilee of Hope.
Is this for real? Is this a misplaced joke?
It’s very real and very sad. Luce is the child-like, blue-haired character who carries a sorcerer’s staff and wears a rainbow-colored rosary around her neck.
In light of the supernatural treasury entrusted to the Church, we need to seriously ask: Is this the best we can do? Does Luce give reverence to the holy martyrs, both those in our history and those who continue to die for the faith today? Does Luce honor the confessors and those who defend and suffer for the Gospel, moral truth, and the gift of life today?
With the assault of secularism against believers in Western cultures, is Luce our best line of defense and encouragement? Will Luce make the secularist pause and reconsider the claims of the Gospel?
Sadly, Luce is another tragic example of the infantilization of believers and of a woeful watering down of the depth, beauty, and power of the Christian way of life. Luce is yet another regrettable representation of a missed opportunity by the Church, salt on an already open wound to those who love the Church and wish to see her strong and flourishing in our world.
Perhaps it was unintended, but Luce is a belittling of the virtue of hope and the sufferings of many who cling to Christ Jesus, our Hope. The mascot is a tragic satire of the state of ecclesial leadership today, which misses providential opportunities, and chooses to draw from the oddly new and obscures the venerable and ancient in the Church’s supernatural treasury.
Our problem is not merely with an anime character, but with the missed opportunity to give and strengthen hope to believers and the world today.
