My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!

A few days ago, the Jubilee of Hope came to an end. Thanks be to God, over the past year many people went through the Holy Door and welcomed the Lord’s invitation to look at reality with a hope that does not disappoint. As Pope Leo XIV reminded us, the Jubilee helped us rediscover “that we can start anew, indeed, that we are still at the beginning and that the Lord wants his presence to grow among us as God-with-us” (Homily, 6-I-2026). Christ never grows tired of our constant beginning and beginning again. Let us draw close to Him also when we feel weak or aware of having failed Him, with the confidence that He always receives us with open arms.

On one occasion, at the beginning of the year, Saint Josemaría proposed the following motto to his children: New year, new struggle. Sanctity, our Founder reminded us, consists “in knowing that we have defects and in heroically trying to overcome them,” without forgetting that “we will still have defects when we die” (The Forge, no. 312). Let us renew our desire to struggle, not with the pretension of changing our lives in a single instant, but by persevering in our “effort to climb a little each day” (Christ is Passing By, no. 75). The hope that, in some way, we have rediscovered during the Jubilee, and that we want to shape our lives, is a gift meant to be shared. The world needs witnesses to God’s faithful and unconditional love. In ordinary life, with simplicity and closeness, we can pass on to others the joy that is born of knowing that the Lord accompanies us at every moment.

Before concluding, I ask you to pray especially for two meetings for work and formation that we will hold in Rome with directors from all the regions – one in January with men, and another in February with women – to further the apostolic priorities for the coming years, on the path toward the Centenary of the Work. And let us not fail to pray for the countries that continue to endure wars and conflicts.

Your Father blesses you with all his affection.

Rome, January 18, 2026