• Seton Hall University
• Department of Catholic Studies

High School Essay Contest

2025 High School Essay Contest – What Does It Mean to be a Pilgrim of Hope?

 On May 9, 2024, Pope Francis declared 2025 to be a Jubilee Holy Year, “the 2,025th anniversary of the Incarnation of our Lord, an ‘event of great spiritual, ecclesial, and social significance in the life of the Church.’” It is “a special year of reconciliation, pilgrimage, and coming home.” The 2025 Jubilee Year was announced with a public reading by the Pope of Spes Non Confundit (“Hope Does Not Disappoint” from Romans 5:5), the Bull of Indiction, in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. This papal document lays out the foundation for the 2025 Jubilee and its theme, "Pilgrims of Hope." 

Occurring every twenty-five years since the thirteenth century, Jubilee years include pilgrimages, processions, celebrations of Mass and an invitation to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Spes Non Confundit suggests several ways for Catholics to participate: by working for peace and an end to conflicts, promoting human life, showing amnesty to prisoners, upholding the dignity of migrants, healing the sick, and accompanying the elderly, and even through the forgiveness of debts, a custom of Jubilee years in the Old Testament.

Students are invited to write essays in response to one of the following prompts:
1) In Spes Non Confundit, Pope Francis writes, “During the Holy Year, we are called to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” How might you be a “tangible sign of hope” in your parish and your community? What kinds of activities might you participate in? What might be the effects of such activities, especially in generating hope?

2) One way Pope Francis has suggested we can celebrate the Year of Jubilee is by “abstaining, in a spirit of penance, at least for one day of the week from futile distractions (real but also virtual distractions, for example, the use of the media and/or social networks), from superfluous consumption (for example by fasting or practicing abstinence).” Reflect on your experience of practicing abstinence at some point in your life and the impact it had. 

The author of the winning essay will receive $300 and a certificate, and the two runners-up will each receive a $50 gift card and certificate. All three winners will be honored at the annual Catholic Studies Honor Society induction and reception at Seton Hall University in April 2025. The three winning essays will also appear in the magazine Arcadia: A Student Journal for Faith and Culture, which is published by the Catholic Studies Program.