Jubilee 2025

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

Link here to his full letter. Letter from Pope Francis

The Jubilee has always been an event of great spiritual, ecclesial and social importance in the life of the Church. Since Boniface VIII instituted the first Holy Year in 1300 – with a cadence of one hundred years, then, according to the biblical model, of fifty years and later fixed at twenty-five – the faithful people of God have lived this celebration as a special gift of grace, characterized by the forgiveness of sins and, in particular, by indulgence, the full expression of God's mercy. The faithful, usually at the end of a long pilgrimage, access the spiritual treasure of the Church by passing through the Holy Door and venerating the relics of the Apostles Peter and Paul preserved in the Roman basilicas. Millions upon millions of pilgrims have come to these holy places over the centuries, giving living witness to their enduring faith.

However, in the last two years there has been no country that has not been affected by the unexpected epidemic which, in addition to making us see the drama of dying alone, the uncertainty and the transience of existence, has also changed our way of life.

We must keep alive the flame of hope that has been given to us, and do everything possible so that everyone recovers the strength and certainty to look to the future with an open mind, a trusting heart and broad vision. The next Jubilee can do much to restore a climate of hope and confidence, as a sign of a new rebirth that we all perceive as urgent. For this reason I chose the motto Pilgrims of Hope.

From our Bishops 

Link to Bishop Fabbro’s letter: Letter to the Faithful on a Time of Prayer in Preparation for Jubilee 2025 - Diocese of London - London, Ontario

In January, Pope Francis invited all the world to join in prayer in preparation for the coming Holy Year, Jubilee 2025. It has been the tradition since 1300 for popes to proclaim specific years as a “Jubilee Year”. Wishing that the faithful could experience the graces of a Holy Year more frequently, later popes have proclaimed a Jubilee every 25 years as well as extraordinary Holy Years with particular themes. Many will remember St. John Paul’s Year of Mary, Pope Benedict’s Year of Faith and Pope Francis’ Year of Mercy.

The theme for Jubilee 2025 is “Pilgrims of Hope”. Having reached the conclusion of our own diocesan Year of Prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood, it is time now to turn our minds and hearts to the coming Jubilee in union with Catholics worldwide.

From Bishop William T. McGrattan, President of the Canadian Council of Canadian Bishops:

Bishop McGrattan expressed great enthusiasm for the upcoming Jubilee year, stating, “The Jubilee Year 2025 offers a unique opportunity for renewal and reflection within the local and universal Church, that is inviting all the faithful to walk together on our communal path of faith as ‘Pilgrim of Hope’. We are committed to fostering this journey through meaningful events and resources.”

The Jubilee asks us to set out and overcome certain limits. When we move, in fact, we do not just change place, but we transform ourselves. Therefore, it is important to prepare, plan the journey and know the destination. In this sense, the pilgrimage that characterizes this year begins before the journey itself: its starting point is the decision to do so. The etymology of the word ‘pilgrimage’ is decidedly significant and has undergone few changes in meaning. In fact, the word derives from the Latin per ager, meaning “across the fields,” or per eger, meaning “border crossing”: both roots indicate the distinctive aspect of undertaking a journey.

Link: Pilgrimage

From a symbolic point of view, the Holy Door takes on a particular meaning: it is the most characteristic sign, because the goal is to be able to pass through it. Its opening by the Pope marks the official beginning of the Holy Year. Originally, there was only one door, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which is the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome. In order to enable the numerous pilgrims to make this gesture, the other Basilicas of Rome also offered this possibility.

Crossing this threshold, the pilgrim recalls the text of chapter 10 of the Gospel according to St. John: “I am the door; whoever enters through me will be saved and will come in and out, and will find pastures.” The gesture expresses the decision to follow and be guided by Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd. On the other hand, the door is also a passage that leads into a church. For the Christian community, it is not only a sacred space, which one must approach with respect, with appropriate behaviour and dress, but it is a sign of the communion that unites every believer with Christ: it is the place of encounter and dialogue, of reconciliation and peace that awaits the visit of every pilgrim, the space of the Church as a community of the faithful.

Link to the Vatican website page: Holy Door

Learn more about the Holy Door: St. Peter's - The Holy Door

Watch Pope Francis open the Holy Door on 24 December 2024. Here

A Jubilee year is a sign of reconciliation because it establishes a “favorable time” (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:2) for conversion. We are called to put God at the center of our lives, growing toward Him and acknowledging His primacy. Even the Biblical call for the restoration of social justice and respect for the earth stems from a theological reality: if God is the creator of the universe, He must be given priority over every reality and partisan interest. It is God who makes this year holy by bestowing on us His own holiness.

As Pope Francis recalled in the 2015 Bull proclaiming the Extraordinary Holy Year, “Mercy is not opposed to justice but rather expresses God’s way of reaching out to the sinner, offering him a new chance to look at himself, convert, and believe. […] God’s justice is his mercy given to everyone as a grace that flows from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus, the Cross of Christ is God’s judgement on all of us and on the whole world, because through it he offers us the certainty of love and new life” (Misericordiae Vultus, 21).

In practical terms, reconciliation involves receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation, taking advantage of this time to rediscover the value of confession, and experiencing God's personal words of forgiveness. There are some Jubilee churches that stay open continuously to make available the sacrament of Reconciliation. You can prepare yourself to receive the sacrament by following a guide.

There are many ways and many reasons for praying; the basis is always the desire to open oneself to the presence of God and to his offer of love. The Christian community feels called and knows that it can turn to the Father only because it has received the Spirit of the Son. And it is, in fact, Jesus who entrusted to his disciples the prayer of the Our Father, commented on also by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (cf. CCC 2759-2865). Christian tradition offers other texts, such as the Hail Mary, which help to find the words to turn to God: “Through a living transmission of Sacred Tradition, the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God in the Church to pray” (CCC 2661).

The moments of prayer during the journey show that the pilgrim has the ways of God “in his heart” (Ps 83:6). This type of food also requires various stops and stops, often located around hermitages, sanctuaries, or other places particularly rich in spiritual meaning, where one realizes that - before and next to - other pilgrims have passed by and that these same paths have been traveled by paths of holiness. In fact, the paths that lead to Rome often coincide with the paths of many saints.

The profession of faith, also called the “symbol,” is a sign of recognition proper to the baptized; it expresses the central content of the faith and synthetically gathers together the main truths that a believer accepts and bears witness to on the day of his baptism and shares with the entire Christian community for the rest of his life.

There are various professions of faith, which show the richness of the experience of the encounter with Jesus Christ. However, traditionally, two have acquired special recognition: the baptismal creed of the Church of Rome and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed, originally drawn up in 325 by the Council of Nicaea, in present-day Turkey, and later perfected by the Council of Constantinople in 381.

“For if you profess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. “For with the heart one believes in order to obtain righteousness, and with the lips one professes in order to obtain salvation” (Rom 10:9-10). This text of St. Paul underlines how the proclamation of the mystery of faith demands a profound conversion not only of one's own words, but also and above all of one's vision of God, of oneself and of the world. “To recite the Creed with faith is to enter into communion with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to enter into communion with the whole Church which transmits the faith to us and in whose bosom we believe” (CCC 197).

Indulgence is a concrete manifestation of God's mercy, which goes beyond the limits of human justice and transforms them. This treasure of grace became history in Jesus and the saints: seeing these examples and living in communion with them, the hope of forgiveness and of one's own path to holiness is strengthened and becomes a certainty. Indulgence allows one to free one's heart from the weight of sin, so that one can freely offer the reparation due.

Concretely, this experience of mercy passes through certain spiritual actions that are indicated by the Pope. Those who, due to illness or another cause, cannot make the pilgrimage are nevertheless invited to take part in the spiritual movement that accompanies this Year, offering their suffering and their daily life and participating in the Eucharistic celebration.

The logo explained – courtesy of New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference

Download/print a copy: Jubilee-Logo-PDF.pdf

The colours selected for the logo are also significant.

RED symbolizes love, passion and self-sacrifice, Christ’s sacrifice and His boundless love for humanity

ORANGE expresses joy, vitality, enthusiasm, the light that illuminates the path of faith

GREEN is a universal colour of hope, growth and rebirth

BLUE represents faith, peace and tranquillity. It evokes the sky and spirituality and invites contemplation and prayer

Across the Jubilee year, additional resources will be introduced to guide you in your spiritual examination of HOPE.

A new Hymn during Mass

Jubilee Prayer cards

Jubilee Banner and Candle

Pilgrims of Hope reference guides at our Hope Bookshelf

Pilgrimages, near and far, will be announced

Activities are planned across the year. Details will be provided in updates to this webpage.