Jubilee Holy Year 2025: A year of the Lord’s favour
By Catherine Sheehan
Next year the Catholic Church around the world will celebrate the Jubilee Holy Year of 2025, which Pope Francis has proclaimed as a time for hope and for personal encounter with Jesus Christ, who is the “door” to our salvation.
The Jubilee Year will run from 24 December 2024 to 14 December 2025 and will involve pilgrimages to the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and to major churches in local dioceses around the world. The Jubilee motto will be ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.
Archbishop Julian will be leading an Archdiocesan pilgrimage to Rome from 27 January to 6 February next year, to enter the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica. Numbers will be limited for the pilgrimage, which will include five nights in Rome and two nights in Assisi, with the final costings for the trip yet to be confirmed.
The Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica will be opened by the Holy Father at the beginning of the Jubilee Year and it will remain open for the entire 12 months. During this time pilgrims will be able to pass through the Holy Door and obtain the special Jubilee Indulgence.
Anyone who participates in the Holy Year, even at the local diocesan level, can obtain the Jubilee Indulgence which removes the effects of sin from one’s soul. The Indulgence can be obtained by making a pilgrimage to a sacred Jubilee site and taking part in prayer, a liturgical celebration or the sacrament of reconciliation.
On 9 May this year, Pope Francis issued the Papal Bull ‘Spes non confundit’, ‘Hope does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5), proclaiming the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025.
“Hope is also the central message of the coming Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every twenty-five years,” Pope Francis stated.
“My thoughts turn to all those pilgrims of hope who will travel to Rome in order to experience the Holy Year and to all those others who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches.
“For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ (cf. Jn 10:7.9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as ‘our hope’ (1 Tim 1:1).”
The tradition of celebrating a Jubilee Year goes all the way back to ancient Israel. In the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament there is reference to a jubilee year every 50 years (Lev 25:8-13). The beginning of the jubilee year was marked by the sounding of a trumpet or ram’s horn, known as a ‘yobel’, from which the word ‘Jubilee’ is derived. The Jubilee Year was to be a ‘holy’ time when debts would be forgiven, misappropriated land would be returned, and there would be rest from planting crops.
The first Jubilee Holy Year in the Church was called by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300. Initially Jubilees were celebrated every 100 years, however in 1343 Pope Clement VI changed it to every 50 years, and in 1470 Pope Paul II established Jubilee Years every 25 years.
As well as Ordinary Holy Years there are also Extraordinary Holy Years. Pope Francis called the Extraordinary Jubilee of the Year of Mercy from 2015-2016.
Pope Francis said he hoped that during the Jubilee Year of 2025 “the light of Christian hope” would “illumine every man and woman, as a message of God’s love addressed to all”.
“And may the Church bear faithful witness to this message in every part of the world,” the Holy Father said.
Holy Year Pilgrimage 2025
27 January 2025 to 6 February 2025 (11 days)
- Rome – Jubilee Holy Year (5 nights), Assisi (2 nights)
There will be limited spaces available on this pilgrimage organised in conjunction with Harvest Journeys.
Final costings are yet to be confirmed.
Expressions of interest can be sent to danielle.fehlberg@aohtas.org.au