Jubilee 2025: A global, local celebration18 min read

Jenny Snarski
Catholic Herald Staff

The Jubilee Year 2025 will officially begin when Pope Francis opens the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on Dec. 24. Then on Dec. 29, the pope will open the Holy Door at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome with similar celebrations happening at St. Mary Major on Jan. 1 and St. Paul Outside the Walls on Jan. 5.

As Pope Francis opens the Holy Door for Rome’s diocesan cathedral, bishops will do the same in every cathedral and co-cathedral church around the world. For the Diocese of Superior, Bishop James P. Powers will open the Holy Door at the Cathedral of Christ the King on Dec. 29, along with a 3 p.m. Mass with a light social following.

In Spes Non Confundit (“Hope does not disappoint”), the Bull of Indiction for the Ordinary Jubilee, given at St. John Lateran’s on May 9, Pope Francis turned his thoughts to the many “pilgrims of hope” who would travel to Rome and celebrate the Jubilee in their local churches.

“For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ (cf. Jn 19:7, 9) of our salvation, whom the church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as ‘our hope’ (1 Tim 1:1).”

He defined hope as “the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring,” and acknowledged that this uncertainty can lead to feelings that range from confident trust and conviction to anxiety and doubt. The pope reflected on the pierced heart of Jesus on the cross as the source and spring of hope; a hope that the Holy Spirit keeps burning in the life of the church, “like an ever-burning lamp, to sustain and invigorate our lives.

“Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love,” Pope Francis affirmed.

He reflected on the reality that “love is tested amid trials, and that hope can falter in the face of suffering” and that the virtue of patience is necessary to practice hope because “beyond the darkness we glimpse a light.”

Commenting on the history of Jubilee Years, the first of which was proclaimed in the year 1300, the pope said the “interplay of hope and patience makes us see clearly that the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps toward the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.” He highlighted the significance of pilgrimage and its correlation with “our human quest for meaning in life.”

In Jewish practice, jubilee years were celebrated every 50 years. Once it was introduced in the Catholic Church in 1300 to be celebrated once a century, the frequency was returned to 50 then shortened to every 25 years by Pope Paul II in 1425. They have been celebrated according to this calendar except during the 19th century due to the Napoleonic wars in Europe.

Besides an extraordinary Jubilee year declared by Pope Francis for 2015, the 50th anniversary of the end of Vatican II, the last ordinary Jubilee took place under the leadership of Pope St. John Paul II for the year 2000.

Pope Francis’ bull states that the conclusion of the holy Jubilee year will take place on Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025 and encourages, “in the course of the year, every effort should be made to enable the people of God to participate fully in its proclamation of hope in God’s grace and in the signs that attest to its efficacy.”

As Pope Francis reflects on the signs of hope, he makes calls for peace in the midst of war and an openness to life and the desire to bring children into the world as well making a call to be signs of hope to “our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” These include prisoners, the sick and suffering, migrants and refugees, the poor as well as both young people and the elderly.

More concretely, the Holy Father makes appeals for hope for the goods of the earth to be shared and, drawing on the historical jubilee stipulations in the Old Testament as lived by the Jewish people, forgiveness of debts as a matter of justice.

Concluding the bull, Pope Francis refers to the death and resurrection of Jesus as “the heart of our faith and the basis of our hope … For our sake, Jesus experienced the drama of death,” and through Christian baptism “we receive in his resurrection the gift of a new life that breaks down the walls of death, making it a passage to eternity.” While he doesn’t deny the pain of death, the pope offers the Jubilee as an “opportunity to appreciate anew, and with immense gratitude, the gift of new life that we have received in baptism, a life capable to transfiguring death’s drama.” He offers the example of the martyrs as “the most convincing testimony to this hope,” as “confessors of the life that knows no end” who are present even in modern times.

The pope speaks of God’s judgment as “another reality having to do with eternal life” and notes the sense of awe artists have attempted to inspire through works of art. He says, “we should indeed prepare ourselves consciously and soberly for the moment when our lives will be judged, but we must always do this from the standpoint of hope, the theological virtue that sustains our lives and shields them from groundless fear.” Judgment, he states, “is meant to bring us to a definitive encounter with the Lord.

“The evil we have done cannot remain hidden; it needs to be purified in order to enable this definitive encounter with God’s love,” he adds and renews a call to pray for the deceased.

Here, the Holy Father speaks about the Jubilee indulgence as “a way of discovering the unlimited nature of God’s mercy.”

Jubilee indulgences can be received – accompanied by the normal stipulations of detachment from sin, sacramental confession, reception of Communion and prayer for the intentions of the pope within eight days of completing one of a number of specific acts. These acts include a pilgrimage to Rome visiting certain churches (including some connected to great female saints) or by visiting one’s local cathedral or other shrines selected by the local bishop. For the Diocese of Superior, the historic church of St. Joseph in La Pointe on Madeline Island has been declared a site for indulgence.

Other actions through which Jubilee indulgences can be received are performing works of mercy; fasting, including from distractions like social media and television; volunteering in one’s community; and participating in formation activities.

The sacrament of Penance is given attention and spoken of as “not only a magnificent spiritual gift, but also a decisive, essential and fundamental step on our journey of faith. There, we allow the Lord to erase our sings, to heal our hearts, to raise us up, to embrace us and to reveal to us his tender and compassionate countenance… Let us not neglect Confession, but rediscover the beauty of this sacrament of healing and joy, the beauty of God’s forgiveness of our sins!” The Holy Father also calls to forgive others as we experience God’s forgiveness.

Pope Francis ends his reflections by turning his thoughts to the Mother of God and in particular, Our Lady of Guadalupe, who appeared in Mexico in 1531. “Through Juan Diego, the Mother of God brought a revolutionary message of hope that she continues to bring to every pilgrim and all the faithful: ‘Am I not here, who am your Mother?’” He hopes that Marian shrines will join the Jubilee Year as being special places “where countless pilgrims commend to the holy Mother of God their cares, their sorrows and their hopes.”

He expresses his desire that the coming Jubilee with be a year “marked by the hope that does not fade” and to recover confident trust. “May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope,” he hopes and encourages, “Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it.”

The official Jubilee website for the Vatican is iubilaeum2025.va.
More information is also available at catholicdos.org/2025-jubilee-year.

Cathedral, La Pointe to be Jubilee indulgence sites

The universal Catholic Church will be celebrating the Jubilee Year 2025, the 2,025th anniversary of the incarnation of our Lord, beginning at the end of December. The Jubilee Year will offer the faithful opportunities to participate in various jubilee events at the Vatican and in local dioceses.

The great tradition of opening the Holy Door will begin when Pope Francis opens the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 24. Other holy doors will be opened at the Rome basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls.

For pilgrims who cannot travel to Rome, Bishop James P. Powers will be opening the Jubilee Year on Dec. 29 at Cathedral of Christ the King in Superior.

As a special focus in the Diocese of Superior, Cathedral of Christ the King in Superior and St. Joseph in La Pointe on Madeline Island are designated as holy sites to receive indulgences.

Another special focus for the Jubilee Year is on celebrating the consecrated life that served our parishes in the past and the faithful sons and daughters of our diocese who committed themselves to consecrated life.

Bishop to open Jubilee Year at Dec. 29 Mass

Bishop James P. Powers will celebrate Mass and the Solemn Opening of the Jubilee Year on Dec. 29 at Cathedral of Christ the King, Superior.

Mass will begin at 3 p.m. All clergy are expected to attend; all the faithful are invited to join.

After Mass, there will be a light social in Kress Hall.

The official Jubilee logo, according to the Vatican’s official website for the celebratory year, iubilaeum2025.va, shows four figures, “representing all of humanity, coming from the four corners of the earth,” embracing each other “to indicate the solidarity and fraternity which should unite all peoples.” The front figure holds a cross as a sign of faith and hope and the waves underneath the pilgrim figures indicates the difficult realities of life while the bottom of the cross, in the shape of an anchor, symbolizes hope.