By Bishop James Conley
It was a personal joy and a pastoral privilege to celebrate the opening of the Jubilee Year 2025 with a Solemn Mass to a packed Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln Sunday, Dec. 29, during the Christmas Octave and on the Feast of the Holy Family. In solidarity with diocesan bishops from around the world, the Diocese of Lincoln is answering the call of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, to be “Pilgrims of Hope” for this uniquely historic Holy Year of grace. I was happy to be joined locally by a good number of my brother priests, religious sisters and brothers, and a huge gathering of the lay faithful, as we processed into the cathedral behind the magnificent jubilee cross, the symbol of Christ’s victory over sin and death, and the sure sign of hope!
Based on this theme of hope, the Diocese of Lincoln is planning a rich variety of opportunities for the faithful to access the abundant graces available to us during this holy year.
In addition to the pilgrimage destinations throughout the diocese and the Jubilee Indulgence, we just launched “52 Weeks of Hope.” Each week of 2025, we will feature someone from our diocese — a priest, religious or layperson — who will offer a reflection on a different Bible verse on hope. They’ll do that in a 60-second video, making “A Minute of Hope.” These minutes of hope can be accessed on our diocesan social media platforms, and we’ll also feature them weekly in the Southern Nebraska Register.
Another very exciting initiative for the jubilee year will be “A Pilgrimage of Truth, Goodness and Beauty: A Humanities Syllabus.” This yearlong project is inspired partly through our continued collaboration with the McGrath Institute at the University of Notre Dame and our diocesan “Prepare and Proclaim: Enriching our Mass Experience” program, as well as a long-time personal desire of mine.
As some of you know, I was led to the Catholic Church during my undergraduate years, when I was a student of the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas (KU). The motto of this program was “Let them be born in wonder.” Over the course of 15 years, hundreds of university students were reborn in wonder and eventually converted to the Catholic Church. By experiencing truth, goodness and beauty through the humanities at a very large and secular state university, lives were forever changed. In fact, there was not even a Catholic student center on the KU campus at the time! But it was through an introduction to the rich treasury of western civilization that hundreds of students discovered and fell in love with the Catholic Church.
Exposure to the humanities, the “best that has been known and said,” in the words of Matthew Arnold, helps us to know ourselves. The humanities teach us about humanity—both our own humanity and the humanity of our neighbor. The humanities also teach us, in the words of Joseph Pearce, “that the human person is a homo viator, a pilgrim or wayfarer who journeys through mortal life with eternal life always in mind.”
Unfortunately, there has been a noticeable decline in the study of the humanities over the past 50 years. In some ways, we have forgotten where we come from. G.K. Chesterton, the great British writer and Catholic convert of the early 20th century, recognized this in an almost prophetic way when he wrote, “modern man is more like a traveler who has forgotten the name of his destination, and has to go back whence he came, even to find out where he is going.” We suffer from a kind of cultural amnesia where we have forgotten the tremendous legacy of our past. It is through exposure to the humanities, whether that be great literature, poetry, music, art or even film, that we can discover our deepest purpose and meaning in life, like it did for me years ago as a young college student. It can also set us on lifelong journey of learning. Exposure to the humanities, the struggles and triumphs of those who have gone before us, can help us get through the ups and downs of life, peaks and the valleys, the trials and tribulations of this world.
It was no secret that Sir Winston Churchill suffered from depression at times during his long and illustrious life, particularly between the two world wars. He called it the “black dog” which hounded him throughout his life. It was during one of these dark times that Churchill took up the art of painting. He writes about this period of his life in a little book entitled “Painting as a Pastime.” As a world leader totally immersed in the burdens of global politics, national policy and the sociocultural demands of the day, Churchill knew that it was hard to keep up with his own personal reading, study and reflection. Pondering his vast library of books, he mused that “if they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.” In other words, we should at least be familiar with the contributions to the humanities to be a truly educated person.
I can relate to what Churchill was saying. It was by an encounter with truth, goodness and beauty—through books, poetry, music, art and film—that helped me get through a particularly difficult time in my own life. These encounters can take you out of yourself and out of your own head, reminding you that you are part of something much larger and much grander than your own thoughts and worries. In this way, exposure to the humanities can even contribute to good mental health.
“A Pilgrimage of Truth, Goodness and Beauty: A Humanities Syllabus” is an attempt to identify and introduce great works of literature, poetry, music, art and film, as we make our way through the Jubilee Year. This is by no means an exhaustive compilation, nor is it an official list. These works are not all Catholic, or even religious. These recommendations are works that have impacted me over the years and, with the help of some friends and experts in various fields, I would like to share them with you.
The common goal of each selection will be to highlight “the good, the true and the beautiful.” These are things we should see or experience along life’s journey to inspire our hearts and minds to become the best possible person—the best possible Catholic—God created us to be. The good thing is, there are no right or wrong answers to this list—only my opinion!
Over the course of the Jubilee Year in 2025, we will offer a guided pilgrimage through some of the greatest treasures of our culture. Twelve themes will be introduced, one for each month, through five works of literature, poetry, music, art and film, that will draw us into reflection and discussion of faith and culture. As I mentioned, these titles and artistic works are by no means exhaustive, nor are they somehow the top five. Because it is so hard to limit the list, I will offer “secondary” texts as further suggestions and recommendations. These will be added to each month as an addendum to the five major works, to offer alternative suggestions along the same monthly theme.
Discussion questions and appreciation notes will be offered for each theme. Maybe you could organize a monthly session at your parish to discuss and appreciate these works together. I urge you to be creative – reading aloud, poetry recitation and memorization, live musical concerts or plays, visits to art galleries and movie nights can all be options. Building community and communion around themes of truth, goodness and beauty can inspire hope and joy as we journey together.
The Holy Father wants the Jubilee to be a Holy Year “marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God.” He wants us to “recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation. I pray that this project, “A Pilgrimage of Truth, Goodness and Beauty: A Humanities Syllabus,” might inspire us to be true pilgrims of hope. Look for the first installment here in the Southern Nebraska Register next week!
Editors Note: Click here for more Diocese of Lincoln Jubilee 2025 Resources
Click here for all the Humanities Syllabus postings
