On Christmas Eve of 2024 Pope Francis launched the beginning of the 2025 Jubilee year. Many will have already come across various news articles and commentary on the 2025 Jubilee Year. In this short piece I thought I should offer a few words of explanation for those wondering, what is a jubilee Year and what does it mean for me?
 
The background for the jubilee helps provide the context. The custom arose in Ancient Israel that every fifty years would be celebrated as a year for cancelling debts so as to give those oppressed by economic hardship a fresh chance to begin again. In the Old Testament ‘seven’ represents the perfect number (it also means the swearing of a covenant oath). Seven times seven (= 49) would therefore represent a number of perfection or completion and the fiftieth year would be the conclusion of the forty-nine years – a year of sabbath or rest, in which the fields would lie fallow. The Jews marked this holy year by seeking reconciliation between adversaries, granting liberation to slaves, and the cancellation of debts. It represented a new beginning, a fresh start, and a ‘year of favour from the Lord’.

The word "jubilee" is derived from the Hebrew, jobel, meaning "ram's horn." In the ancient world the ram’s horn commonly functioned as an improvised trumpet, and would be sounded with gusto to joyfully announce the beginning of what became known as the jubilee year. The  English word, ‘jubilee’, commonly denotes a major celebration, which the Jubilee certainly was historically. The book of Leviticus is the source which codifies the significance of the jubilee year:

“And you shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall send abroad the loud trumpet (jobel) on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall send abroad the loud trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family.” (Leviticus 25, 8-10).

Over the centuries the Church, with a deep appreciation for the spiritual and symbolic significance of the prescriptions of the Old Testament, began the custom of having a Jubilee Year every fifty years. Pope Boniface VIII declared the first Jubilee in the year 1300 in response to a huge influx of Christian pilgrims who descended on Rome to visit the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The Pope was genuinely moved by their Christian piety and spirit of contrition and granted them a plenary indulgence for their efforts. It was intended to be foremost an opportunity for the faithful to turn back to God in a spirit of joy-filled repentance, very much in the spirit of the story of the Prodigal Son whose return to Father’s house culminates in a great feast with the fatted calf. By the 15^th Century the custom of the Papal Jubilee Year was well-established and fixed at every twenty-five years, attracting countless thousands of pilgrims who usually made the arduous pilgrimage on foot.
The Pope would offer a plenary indulgence for those pilgrims who travelled to Rome and entered one of the jubilee Doors of the Four Major Basilicas in Rome (these being, St Peter’s, St John Lateran, St Mary Major and St Paul’s Outside the Walls). In each instance the jubilee doors are enormous brass doors elaborately decorated with bas-relief sculptures. These doors are ordinarily sealed shut with cement, but every Jubilee year begins with a ceremony in which the doors are opened for the pilgrims coming to Rome to receive the Jubilee indulgence, as a sign of their spiritual ‘return’ to the Church.
 
The Great Jubilee of 2000 was a capstone of Pope John Paul II’s Pontificate, during which some 26 million pilgrims travelled to Rome. Many Catholics may remember that in 2014 Pope Francis (somewhat unusually) declared an “extraordinary Jubilee Year” for his Year of Mercy. The 2025 Jubilee Year has as its theme: “Pilgrims of Hope.” As with every Jubilee year, this is intended to offer the faithful a powerful impetus to renew their faith and seek to be reconciled to the Heavenly Father, particularly through the Sacrament of Confession. Since we are both in the penitential season of Lent and in a Jubilee Year it would be especially fitting for us all to heed the call to repentance and to seek out the plenary indulgence. For those unable to make the trip to Rome, the Good news is that there are a number of churches throughout the Archdiocese of Melbourne that have been nominated as places of pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year. These include St Patrick’s Cathedral and a number of parish churches, including the local option of Sacred Heart Croydon.  
 
With this in mind, I have high hopes of leading a pilgrimage on foot from St Patrick’s Lilydale to Sacred Heart Croydon (approximately 10 kilometres in total) later in the year, as an opportunity to receive the Jubilee indulgence. I’ll place a sign-up sheet in the Church for those who might be interested in such a pilgrimage: stay tuned for more details!