The Jubilee Year 2025 is the 2,025th anniversary of the Incarnation of our Lord and is themed “Pilgrims of Hope”. This special year is a time for Catholics to engage in prayer, pilgrimage, and acts of mercy.
From time immemorial, people have set aside places that have deep spiritual significance—where God is revealed, honored and worshipped. In the book of Genesis, Jacob describes such a special place in the following way: “How awesome is this shrine! This is nothing but an abode of God and that is the gateway to heaven” (Gen. 28:17).
The Ark of the Covenant was enshrined in a temple and therefore Jerusalem became the most honored Shrine and place of pilgrimage. In the New Testament, places connected with Jesus’ birth, crucifixion and death have become the most holy sites of devotional pilgrimage. Places which were associated with the lives of the Saints acquired devotional significance. In our Judeo-Christian tradition, a shrine is considered a place where divine grace is manifested in a very special way—a place where the human and divine world intersect.
For many centuries the Shrine and Pilgrimage Apostolate has been an important part of the Church’s pastoral life. Its activities, however, have not been the subject of extensive juridical regulation of the Church. The 1983 Code of Canon Law (cc. 1230-1234) outlines the requirements for shrines. Canon 1230 specifically states, “The term shrine signifies a church or other sacred place to which the faithful make pilgrimages for a particular pious reason with the approval of the local ordinary.” The distinguishing mark of a shrine is that it is a place to which the faithful make pilgrimages.
Pilgrimages remind us that the journey we take to a place of special devotion designated as a shrine mirrors the journey on which we are embarked as the pilgrim people of God, for the Church on earth is a pilgrim Church (Lumen Gentium VII, 48-51). “In our view”, Pope Paul VI said, “the pilgrimage may well be the expression, the occasion, and, as it were, the synthesis of all [our penitential] practices, which have as their crown the celebration of the eucharist. In the genuine tradition of Christian asceticism pilgrimages have always had devotion and expiation as their motives.
The pilgrimage can still today be inspired by the same motives. It is essential that the mark of a pilgrimage, besides prayer and penance, be the practice of love of neighbor. For that is a clear proof of love for God and it must be expressed in spiritual and corporal works of mercy towards those most in need.
The jubilee year is a special time when Catholics are especially encouraged to practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Apostolic Penitentiary lists visiting prisoners, spending time with lonely elderly people, aiding the sick or disabled, and helping those who are in need as instances to obtain an indulgence. Practicing the works of mercy, it says, is “in a sense making a pilgrimage to Christ present in them.”
The Jubilee Year of Hope officially opened on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024, with the rite of Opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica by Pope Francis. The Jubilee Year will conclude with the closing of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica on January 6, 2026, the feast of the Epiphany.
Pope Francis emphasized that hope is a divine strength that enables new beginnings. He encouraged pilgrims to be “messengers of hope” and to bring God’s light to their families and communities.
We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart, and far-sighted vision. The Jubilee can contribute greatly to restoring a climate of hope and trust as a prelude to the renewal and rebirth that we so urgently desire.” — Pope Francis
The Jubilee Year offers the faithful opportunities to participate in various jubilee events at the Vatican and in their own dioceses. For pilgrims who cannot travel to Rome, bishops around the world are expected to designate their cathedrals or a popular Catholic shrine as special places of prayer for Holy Year pilgrims, offering opportunities for reconciliation, indulgences and other events intended to strengthen and revive faith.
The Jubilee is an important opportunity to affirm this truth: that no matter where we are the Catholic Church is the Bride of Christ, the Ark of Salvation, and the “steward of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1). And in the year of Our Lord 2025, that same Church is inviting us to take part in a Jubilee celebration.
One of the greatest opportunities available to all the faithful during a Jubilee is the possibility of obtaining a plenary indulgence, a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ to remove the temporal punishment due to sin. Such an indulgence, which applies to sins already forgiven, cleanses the soul as if the person had just been baptized. Plenary indulgences obtained during the Jubilee Year can also be applied to souls in purgatory with the possibility of obtaining two plenary indulgences for the deceased in one day, according to the Apostolic Penitentiary.
The bottom line is that God, through his Church, is inviting us to spiritual renewal this Jubilee year. And nothing should stop any of us from responding to that call!
“For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as ‘our hope,’” Pope Francis
THE JUBILEE PRAYER 2025
Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom.
May your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation
of a new heaven and a new earth,
when, with the powers of Evil vanquished,
your glory will shine eternally.
May the grace of the Jubilee
reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope,
a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread
the joy and peace of our Redeemer
throughout the earth.
To you our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever.
Amen
(The official prayer from Pope Francis for the Jubilee year 2025)
