Celebrating the Jubilee Year of Hope
The Holy Year, or Jubilee Year of Hope, began officially with the opening of the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s Basilica by Pope Francis on 24 December 2024. The Pope then presided over the celebration of the Christmas Eve Mass inside the Basilica.
Earlier last year, in May 2024, Pope Francis introduced the Jubilee Year 2025 with the Papal Bull, Spes Non Confundit (translated as ‘Hope does not disappoint’), inspired by Romans 5:5. In the Bull, the Holy Father underlined that the coming Jubilee will “be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God,” and prayed that it may help us “to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation” (SNC No. 25).
Since the beginning of January 2025 the Pope has also opened the doors in the Basilica of St John Lateran (the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome), and in St Mary Major church, and St Paul’s outside the Walls. A Holy Door will also be opened at the Rebibbia Prison (a Roman prison). Pope Francis had previously visited this prison on two occasions to celebrate Mass and to wash inmates’ feet on Holy Thursday.
Our Jesuit friends and colleagues in Rome have been reporting on the Jubilee Year events so far and the history regarding such jubilees. Read below.
The Old and the New
There is an air of festivity in Rome as the Church prepares for the Jubilee Year under the theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. In the past few months, the eternal city has been seeing a lot of transformation, with multiple visible refurbishment projects and the restoration of several iconic monuments and sculptures ahead of the Jubilee.
Opening the Holy Doors is a significant part of the Jubilee Year. Pope Martin V opened the Holy Door for the first time in the history of the Jubilee in 1423 at the Basilica of St John Lateran. For the Holy Year 1500, Pope Alexander VI desired that the Holy Doors be opened in the other Roman Basilicas as well as at St John Lateran.
A Jubilee Year or a Holy Year is a great religious event. It is a year of forgiveness of sins, reconciliation and conversion. According to the website for the event, the word ‘Jubilee’ comes from ‘yobel’ (ram’s horn) – the name of the instrument used to proclaim the day of atonement (Yom kippur). In the Old Testament ‘extra’ year which happened after ‘every seven weeks of seven years’ (after 49 years).
Over time, the frequency of the years has changed: at first, they were celebrated every 100 years; later, in 1343 Pope Clement VI reduced the gap between jubilees to every 50 years, and in 1470 Pope Paul II made it every 25 years.
A jubilee can be ‘ordinary’ if it falls after a set number of years (25 years) and ‘extraordinary’ when it is proclaimed for an outstanding event. The most recent ordinary jubilee was in 2000, which marked the beginning of the new millennium. In 2015, Pope Francis called for an extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. The first ordinary Jubilee was proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300.
Other jubilee events will take place in Rome during the Jubilee Year, including gatherings with liturgies, speakers, and papal audiences to celebrate different groups such as the armed forces, artists, deacons, and marching bands.
A few events of note will be the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis during the jubilee of Teenagers (25-27 April), and the canonization of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati during the Jubilee of Youth (28 July – 3 August).
The Jubilee Year 2025 will end with the closing of the Holy Doors at St Peter’s Basilica in January 2026 on the feast of the Epiphany.