Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2024
Beginning on Christmas, the Catholic Church will begin the celebration of a “jubilee year”. Jubilee celebrations harken back to the Old Testament where every 50 years all debts were to be forgiven and all slaves freed. Ever since 1300, when Boniface VIII instituted the first Holy Year – initially celebrated every hundred years, then, following its biblical precedent, every fifty years, and finally every twenty-five years – God’s holy people have experienced this celebration as a special gift of grace, characterized by the forgiveness of sins and in particular by the indulgence, which is a full expression of the mercy of God.
Pope Francis wrote: “The Great Jubilee of the year 2000 ushered the Church into the third millennium of her history. Saint John Paul II had long awaited and greatly looked forward to that event, in the hope that all Christians, putting behind their historical divisions, could celebrate together the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior of humanity. Now, as the first twenty-five years of the new century draw to a close, we are called to experience the Holy Year in all its pastoral richness.”
Jubilee year celebrations have several characteristics:
- Mercy: Just as debts were forgiven and slaves set free in the Old Testament jubilees, Catholic jubilee celebrations have as their focus repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The jubilee celebration is an assurance of God’s ever available mercy no matter how grievously we have sinned.
- Mercy: As God forgives us, so we must forgive others. It is a time to heal broken relationships.
- Charity: The Old Testament jubilee was good news for the poor whose debts were forgiven and for slaves who were freed. We practice jubilee spirituality when we assist the poor, free them from their burdens and help them to begin anew, free from all that keeps them bound in poverty and misery. How can jubilee spirituality assist the many people who are in bondage due to addictions?
- Pilgrimage: Deep in the Christian tradition is the idea of pilgrimage, traveling from one’s home to a shrine or holy place to experience God in a fresh encounter. Pilgrimage to Rome is a jubilee tradition. But the Catholic Church will also designate shrines and notable churches throughout the world which people are encouraged to visit and where people can obtain remission of sins by making a pilgrimage in faith. Diocesan cathedrals are always special places of pilgrimage during Jubilee years.
- Hope: Pope Francis has given us the jubilee theme, “Pilgrims of Hope”. The Holy Father asks us to “fan the flame of hope that has been given us and help everyone to gain new strength and certainly by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and far-sighted vision”.
- Hope Does Not Disappoint: This is the title of the Holy Father’s “bull of indiction” announcing the jubilee year. The Pope asks us to hope for peace, to offer hope to the poor and to prisoners. Our ultimate hope is in eternal life. Not even death can rob a Christian of hope.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia opened the Jubilee Year 2025 with a Mass on November 29, 2024 the Cathedral.
