Jubilee Year of Hope
The Jubilee of Hope will begin in December 2024 with Pope Francis opening the ‘Holy Door’ in St Peter’s Basilica, offering the world’s 1.3 billion Catholic’s the possibility of obtaining a plenary indulgence and a year of special graces. The Jubilee of Hope will end on the Feast of the Epiphany in 2026.
A Message from Cardinal Vincent Nichols
A little while ago I was given a most astonishing gift. It was an exact replica of the Papal Bull establishing the fits ever Holy Year. It is dated 22 February 1300. It is signed words ‘So that the people of the present time may know and so that those who come in the future may remember’. Now, 725 years later, it is our turn: to both remember and to ensure that future generations may understand.
The Holy year of 1300 focussed on the forgiveness of sin. The Holy Year of 2025 has as its theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. The two themes are intimately connected across the centuries, for there can be no hop unless there is forgiveness, for everyone of us has need of the mercy of God as we make our pilgrim way. Indeed, the naming of 2025 as a Year of Jubilee carries the same message, for a Jubilee Year is a time for resetting our relationship with God, with one another and with the world around us.
Some may well feel that hope is in short supply just now. Certainly our world is beset with problems that can overpower us and leave us feeling somewhat helpless. Yet the Christian virtue of hope is something different. Christian hope is the sure and certain conviction that we have been created and called into being in order to come into the full presence of God and filled with the glory of God when this pilgrimage is over. With this sure and certain hope we may live through the uncertainties of the age.
May our prayer for this Jubilee Year be robust and heartfelt: that God will guide our poor efforts here, enabling us to contribute to the harmony of the world and all its people, and that God will bring us, in due time and through his mercy, into the fullness of life and joy for which we have been made.
The Jubilee Prayer
Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom.
May your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators
of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform
from within both humanity
and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation
of a new heaven and a new earth,
when, with the powers of Evil vanquished,
your glory will shine eternally.
May the grace of the Jubilee
reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope,
a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread
the joy and peace of our Redeemer
throughout the earth.
To you our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever.
Amen.
