Jubilee 2025 (original) (raw)

Pope Francis has declared that next year, 2025, will be a Holy Year in the Universal Church. The idea of Jubilee has its roots in the Old Testament, with a celebration of a year of forgiveness and reconciliation. The Sabbath was the seventh day, a day of rest, and the Jubilee year was the year following seven times seven years, and so the Jubilee took place every 50th year. In the tradition of the Catholic Church, we now celebrate the Jubilee every 25 years. The Holy Year of 2025 will begin at the Christmas Vigil 2024, when the Holy Father will open the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

https://www.iubilaeum2025.va/en/giubileo-2025/lettera-di-papa-francesco.html

There will be four Holy Doors opened in Rome in the four major basilicas – the basilicas of St Peter, St Paul Outside the Walls, St Mary Major and St John Lateran. Pilgrims to Rome will be encouraged to pass through the Holy Doors, which represent Christ, the gateway. Passing through the doors will take us into the church, a place of peace and reconciliation.

In preparation for the Jubilee, the faithful have been asked to revisit the major documents of the Second Vatican Council: Dei Verbum, Lumen Gentium, Gaudem et Spes and Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Perhaps the last word should be given to Pope Francis, who says of the Jubilee, “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 forthcoming 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; that is why I have chosen as the motto of the Jubilee, Pilgrims of Hope. This will indeed be the case if we are capable of recovering a sense of universal fraternity and refuse to turn a blind eye to the tragedy of rampant poverty that prevents millions of men, women, young people and children from living in a manner worthy of our human dignity. Here I think in particular of the many refugees forced to abandon their native lands. May the voices of the poor be heard throughout this time of preparation for the Jubilee, which is meant to restore access to the fruits of the earth to everyone. As the Bible teaches, “_The sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you; for your cattle also, and for the beasts that are in your land, all its yield shall be for food_” (Lev 25:6-7).”

For smartphone users who intend to visit Rome, a free app is now available to download, “Iubileaum25”. This app is available in many languages and will allow the pilgrim to register for Holy Year events and keep up to date with what is happening in Rome and elsewhere for the Jubilee. When you have downloaded the app and registered, you will then be able to sign up for Jubilee events and pilgrimages to the Holy Doors. The app can be downloaded from your usual app store.

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Jubilee Churches

Three churches in our diocese have been designated Jubilee 2025 Churches:

• St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen
• St Mary’s, Beauly
• Pluscarden Abbey Church

Conditions for Obtaining the Jubilee Indulgence during the Ordinary Jubilee Year 2025

During the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, all the faithful, who are truly repentant and free from any affection for sin (cf. Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, IV ed., norm. 20, § 1), who are moved by a spirit of charity and who, during the Holy Year, purified through the sacrament of penance and refreshed by Holy Communion, pray for the intentions of the Holy Father (this prayer for the Pope’s intentions is left to the choice of the individual, but an “Our Father” and a “Hail Mary” are suggested), will be able to obtain from the treasury of the church a plenary indulgence, with remission and forgiveness of all their sins, if they also undertake a pious pilgrimage or a pious visit to any sacred jubilee site. This Jubilee Plenary Indulgence can be also applied in suffrage to the souls in Purgatory.

Conditions for a Jubilee Pilgrimage

The faithful, pilgrims of hope, will be able to obtain the Jubilee Indulgence granted by the Holy Father if they undertake a pious pilgrimage to any sacred Jubilee site by devoutly participating in Holy Mass (where the liturgical norms allow for it, the Mass of the Jubilee might fruitfully be chosen, or one of the Votive Masses: for Reconciliation, for the Remission of Sins, for the Promotion of Charity or to Foster Harmony); a ritual Mass for the conferral of the sacraments of Christian Initiation or the Anointing of the Sick; or any of the following: a celebration of the Word of God; the Liturgy of the Hours (office of readings, lauds, vespers); the Via Crucis; the Marian Rosary; the recitation of the Akathist hymn; a penitential celebration, which ends with the individual confessions of the penitents, as established in the Rite of Penance (form II).

Conditions for a Jubilee Pious Visit

Likewise, the faithful can obtain the Jubilee Indulgence if, individually or in a group, they devoutly visit any Jubilee site and there, for a suitable period of time, engage in Eucharistic adoration and meditation, concluding with the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form, and invocations to Mary, the Mother of God, so that in this Holy Year everyone “will come to know the closeness of Mary, the most affectionate of mothers, who never abandons her children” (Spes non Confundit, 24).

Extracts from the Holy Father’s Bull of Indiction

The Deacon then reads from the Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee Year, Spes non confundit (1; 3; 7; 25) 1. Spes non confundit. “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5).

In the spirit of hope, the Apostle Paul addressed these words of encouragement to the Christian community of Rome.

Hope is also the central message of the coming Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every twenty-five years.

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).

Everyone knows what it is to hope.

In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring.

Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness,
from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt.
Often we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness.

For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope.

Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross: “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life” (Rom 5:10).

That life becomes manifest in our own life of faith, which begins with Baptism, develops in openness to God’s grace and is enlivened by a hope constantly renewed and confirmed by the working of the Holy Spirit.

By his perennial presence in the life of the pilgrim Church, The Holy Spirit illumines all believers with the light of hope.

He keeps that light burning, 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.

In addition to finding hope in God’s grace, we are also called to discover hope in the signs of the times that the Lord gives us.

As the Second Vatican Council observed: “In every age, the Church has the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.

In this way, in language adapted to every generation, she can respond to people’s persistent questions about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other”.

We need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence.

The signs of the times, which include the yearning of human hearts in need of God’s saving presence, ought to become signs of hope.

Let us even now be drawn to this hope! Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it.

May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: “Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!” (Ps 27:14).

May the power of hope fill our days, as we await with confidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory, now and forever.

Opening of the Jubilee Year Mass

Holy Year HymnThe LogoUseful Links

A Holy Year hymn has been commissioned for the Jubilee, with words by Pierangelo Sequeri and music by Francesco Meneghello. The words of the hymn echo the themes of the Holy Year and the dynamism of Christian hope, revealing the face of Christ in our fellow pilgrims along the path of life. The words and score of the hymn can be downloaded from the Vatican Jubilee website. There is also on the website a video of the hymn being sung in English by the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC.

Listen to the Jubilee Hymn on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/b6xoPAInr_8?si=QMWe5uu59wmKFo4y

The theme of this Holy Year is Pilgrims of Hope, and the logo represents this theme:

“_The logo shows four stylized figures, representing all of humanity, coming from the four corners of the earth. They embrace each other to indicate the solidarity and fraternity which should unite all peoples. The figure at the front is holding onto the cross. It is not only the sign of the faith which this lead figure embraces, but also of hope, which can never be abandoned, because we are always in need of hope, especially in our moments of greatest need. There are the rough waves under the figures, symbolising the fact that life’s pilgrimage does not always go smoothly in calm waters. Often the circumstances of daily life and events in the wider world require a greater call to hope. That’s why we should pay special attention to the lower part of the cross which has been elongated and turned into the shape of an anchor which is let down into the waves. The anchor is well known as a symbol of hope. In maritime jargon the ‘anchor of hope’ refers to the reserve anchor used by vessels involved in emergency manoeuvres to stabilise the ship during storms. It is worth noting that the image illustrates the pilgrim’s journey not as an individual undertaking, but rather as something communal, marked by an increasing dynamism leading one ever closer to the cross. The cross in the logo is by no means static, but it is also dynamic. It bends down towards humanity, not leaving human beings alone, but stretching out to them to offer the certainty of its presence and the security of hope. At the bottom of the logo is the motto of the 2025 Jubilee Year: Pilgrims in hope, represented in green letters._”