What is a Jubilee Year?
- A Holy Year of the forgiveness of sin, conversion and joyful celebration.
- The word “jubilee” comes from the Hebrew word yobel, which refers to the ram’s horn used to announce a jubilee in the Old Testament.
Old Testament Origins
God told Moses that every fiftieth year was to be set aside for the return of absent members to their households, the restoration of land to its owners, the release of Hebrew slaves and the forgiveness of debts.
This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, every one to his own family estate. (Lev. 25:10)
Like the sabbath, which took place on the seventh day of each week, the jubilee was a time for the Israelites to re-establish a proper relationship with God and with one another.
What is the Jubilee of 2025? (1:18)
Jubilee 2025: Pilgrims of Hope
Jubilee 2025 was proclaimed by Pope Francis in the Papal Bull Spes Non Confundit (“Hope does not disappoint”).
“The coming Jubilee will thus be a Holy Year marked by the hope that does not fade, our hope in God. May it 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.” (Pope Francis, Spes Non Confundit 25)
The jubilee will begin in Rome on the vigil of the Lord’s Nativity on Dec. 24, 2024 with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, and in local dioceses on Holy Family Sunday on Dec. 29. It will conclude in local dioceses the following Holy Family Sunday on Dec. 28, 2025, and in Rome on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, Jan. 6, 2026, with the closing of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.
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.
