Hope-filled journey

Jubilee Year 2025: Pilgrims of hope

By Aaron Lambert

Amid all the strife, division and unrest that only seems to grow with each day, the world could use a little bit (or rather, a lot) of hope right now.

To that end, and perhaps providentially, Pope Francis has declared 2025 to be a jubilee year with the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” With this jubilee, also known as a holy year, the Church will embark on a collective pilgrimage toward “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,’” as the Pope wrote in his bull of indiction proclaiming the jubilee year, “Spes non confudit” (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”).

This pilgrimage will be both a figurative and literal one. Part of the tradition of jubilee years is making a pilgrimage to various holy doors throughout the world as designated by the Pope. Pilgrims from all over the world are invited to journey to each of the holy doors for a special jubilee indulgence granted by the Pope.

For the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, in keeping with the tradition that was established by Pope Alexander VI in 1500, the holy doors at the four major basilicas in Rome will be opened. The first holy door at St. Peter’s Basilica will be opened on Dec. 24, thus marking the start of the jubilee year. The other doors at St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. John Lateran will follow in subsequent weeks.

Additionally, the Pope expressed a desire to open a holy door in a prison, writing in his papal bull: “In order to offer prisoners a concrete sign of closeness, I would myself like to open a holy door in a prison, as a sign inviting prisoners to look to the future with hope and a renewed sense of confidence.”

During the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015, Pope Francis invited dioceses around the world to designate their own holy doors for pilgrimage, but that was an innovation specific to that year. The only holy doors for the 2025 jubilee will be those in Rome.

That being said, other pilgrimage sites and sacred places around the world have been designated as a means for pilgrims to receive the jubilee indulgence as well. This includes the three basilicas in the Holy Land (the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth), various other churches and basilicas around Rome and the surrounding areas, the two minor papal basilicas in Assisi, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, as well as “any minor basilica, cathedral church, co-cathedral church, Marian sanctuary, any distinguished collegiate church or sanctuary designated by the diocesan bishop or eparch for the benefit of the faithful, and national or international sanctuaries, ‘sacred places of welcome and privileged spaces for the rebirth of hope’ (“Spes non confundit,” 24), as indicated by episcopal conferences.”

Jubilee years find their roots in ancient Jewish tradition. References to these special years can be found in the Old Testament, most notably in the Book of Leviticus, where they were prescribed by the law of Moses: “You shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim the liberty throughout the land, to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family. This 50th year is to be a jubilee year for you: you will not sow, you will not harvest the ungathered corn, you will not gather the untrimmed vine. The jubilee is to be a holy thing to you, you will eat what comes from the fields” (Lev 25:10-14).

The purpose of the jubilee year is, simply put, holiness. As a Vatican document issued during the 2000 jubilee notes, “The jubilee is called holy year not only because it begins, is marked and ends with solemn holy acts, but also because its purpose is to encourage holiness of life.”

Historically, jubilees were times of both celebration and reconciliation. During these holy years in ancient times, it was decreed that slaves be granted their freedom and land be returned to original owners. The practice of marking jubilee years was restored by Pope Boniface VII in 1300 and has continued at regular intervals that have fluctuated throughout history, starting at 100 years in 1300, changing to 50 years for the jubilee of 1450 and then to 25 years for the jubilee of 1475, where it has remained to the present day. Popes also have the authority to proclaim jubilee years outside the regular 25-year interval, which are called extraordinary jubilees. The Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015 was the last extraordinary jubilee. In the Catholic Church, the 2025 jubilee will be the 27th ordinary jubilee and the 32nd overall jubilee.

Since the very first jubilee year, pilgrimage to the holy doors in Rome has been a key component of the celebration. The imagery of the holy door is meant to invoke the path to salvation, who is Christ himself, as he says in the Gospel of John: “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved” (Jn 10:9). By making a pilgrimage to the holy doors during the jubilee year, the faithful express their hope in Jesus Christ as Lord and thereby renew their own path to the eternal life promised them by Christ “the gate.”

Of course, a door has two sides, and just as He implores us to “knock, and the door will be opened for you” (Lk 11:90), Christ is also knocking at the doors to our own hearts: “I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me” (Rev 3:20).

May the 2025 jubilee be an occasion for the Church to walk through the doors of divine hope and for that divine hope to enter our own hearts. For the hope that Christ offers goes far beyond what the world offers; it is a “hope born of grace, which enables us to live in Christ and to overcome sin, fear and death. This hope, which transcends life’s fleeting pleasures and the achievement of our immediate goals, makes us rise above our trials and difficulties, and inspires us to keep pressing forward, never losing sight of the grandeur of the heavenly goal to which we have been called” (“Spes non confudit,” 25).

Aaron Lambert is a contributing writer from Denver.