Testimony of Albania-Kosovo – 2025 Jubilee of Hope
The Jubilee of Hope was a wonderful and memorable occasion for each and every one of us as members of Christ’s Church. As the Vincentian Family, we lived together during the Jubilee with a wealth of experience. We also walked together as one family, sharing and testifying about various aspects of our lives and culture. We felt the presence of Jesus Christ during the Jubilee of Hope.
In a very special way, as the Vincentian Family from Albania and Kosovo, we participated with joy in Rome, alongside 38 participants from the Vincentian Marian Youth, the Congregation of the Mission, and the Daughters of Charity.
It was a week marked with fraternal joy, prayer, Christian formation, and missionary commitment involving hundreds of youths, sisters, and priests from the Vincentian Family.
It is indeed Jesus who gives us all the reasons to be hopeful and to be joyful. It is He who can transform our lives and enlighten our hope.
It is the reason we normally say it is very good and also a blessing to be a child of God.
It was a truly beautiful experience that helped us open our hearts wide, allowing Jesus Christ to enter, transform us, and set us on an adventure with Christ towards eternity.
We have met other young people from different parts of the world and from diverse cultures, exchanged experiences, danced, prayed, and sung, sharing the same charisma and joy of meeting God, the God who loves us. It makes no difference whatever may happen to us in our lives. At every moment, we are infinitely loved.
With the theme “Pilgrims of Hope,” we reflected on our journey of faith and renewed our commitment to spreading hope and love in a world where we are.
The formation days presented us a unique opportunity to inspire and engage the younger generations and us in the life of the Church and the life of the Vincentian Family.
It became a vocational, communal, and missionary journey that has been etched in the memories of many young people who have since directed their lives toward God.
By empowering change, hope, and renewal within our communities, we affirmed their vital role in building a brighter and more compassionate future for the Church and the beautiful future of the Vincentian Family.
John Paul II said: “It is Jesus who stirs in them the desire to make something great of their lives, this is our prayer, our wish for each of them.”
Let us remain united to him, to our Mother Mary, let us remain in this beautiful friendship with our Saints always, cultivating it through faith, hope, and to see the light of the Gospel growing every day in our hearts.
Mother of HOPE, pray for us! Amen.
Sister Ardiana Kolaj, DC
VMY Albania-Kosovo
