Jubilee 2025: A Holy Year for Hope
By: Paul Jarzembowski | Associate Director for the Laity, Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. (Lk 4:18-19)
This biblical moment, when Jesus boldly read from Isaiah 61:1-2, brings our attention to the 2025 Jubilee Holy Year, “a year acceptable to the Lord.” Every 25 years, the Catholic Church pauses its routine to mark the traditional anniversary of the outpouring of God’s grace on the world through the Incarnation and Nativity of Christ. This is the 2,025th anniversary of that incredible manifestation.
Additionally, the roots of Jubilee stretch back even further when God commanded that a sacred year should be set aside (at that time, every 50 years) for reconciliation, forgiveness, social justice, and homecoming (see Lv 25:1-22, Dt 15:1-11).
For centuries, Catholics have commemorated Holy Years with a “homecoming” of sorts by making pilgrimage to Rome, the spiritual home of our faith community. Holy Doors in Rome’s major churches were established to mark the completion of the journey and a fresh start. In actively and intentionally reconciling, making pilgrimage (to Rome or a local holy site), doing works of mercy, and praying in solidary with the Holy Father), we gain a blessing that transcends time and space: a reprieve of some suffering after death (which Catholics call an “indulgence” due to God being indulgent with his divine mercy).
Seeing increasing strife and anxiety around the world, Pope Francis declared that the 2025 Jubilee would be dedicated to hope. He said, “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” (Spes Non Confundit, no. 1).
To mark this occasion, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has assembled a collection of resources to guide the faithful, accessible at: https://www.usccb.org/jubilee2025.
That webpage includes prayers, hymns, videos, news articles, pilgrimage tools for Rome (and local holy site) pilgrims, liturgical options, maps of U.S. pilgrim sites, and a month-to-month calendar filled with resource packets for various moments throughout the Holy Year. Most materials are available in English and Spanish.
For the 2025 Jubilee, Pope Francis marked the year with special celebrations of communities and ministerial areas which point us toward hope. Artists, workers, priests, volunteers, young people, the elderly, athletes, missionaries, migrants, catechists, musicians, consecrated religious, families, and prisoners are just a few of these populations. On assigned days during the Holy Year (based on the Jubilee calendar), the Church lifts them up as both recipients and prisms of God’s light and mercy for the world.
Some may choose these designated moments to travel to Rome, but most will commemorate them at home. Because of that, local Catholic communities and ministries are encouraged to celebrate and honor them in their own way, so each person knows God’s love for them, and so the wider community remembers how much of a blessing they are to us. Ideas for local celebrations can be found within the resource packets available through the Jubilee calendar page the USCCB website.
We are called to mark this sacred 2,025th anniversary year as a way to thank God for his bountiful mercy, made manifest by the incarnation and birth of Christ into humanity and which continues to be seen in the faces of one another. Enjoy this Jubilee journey!