Preparing for the Jubilee Year 2025

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

St. Paul says to the Romans, “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom. 5:5).

This particular phrase is a phrase that Pope Francis has wanted to choose to help us to focus on the new Jubilee that's coming up in the year 2025.

He's chosen the theme of “hope” for this whole Jubilee, and he has recently issued a document by that very title: “Hope does not disappoint”–Spes non confundit in Latin. It’s on the Internet.

He wants hope “to be the central message of the coming Jubilee. … For everyone,” he says, “may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere, and to all as ‘our hope’” (1 Tim. 1:1).

With that, the Holy Father is quoting St. John, who says, “In truth, I tell you,” using the words of Jesus, “I am the gate of the sheepfold, the door. I am the gate. … Anyone who enters through me will be saved. Such a one will go in and out and will find pasture” (cf. John 10: 7, 9).

In St. Paul to Timothy, he says, “Paul, an apostle of Christ, appointed by the command of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, our hope” (1 Tim 1:1).

The Holy Father has issued this document to help us to prepare spiritually in our prayer life for this year, which can be a year of great graces.

He says, “In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come…Even so, uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt” (Pope Francis, Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025, Spes non confundit, May 9, 2024).

He says, “For all of us, may the Jubilee be an opportunity to be renewed in hope. God's word helps us find reasons for that hope.”

St. Paul to the Romans says, “Since we are justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God. … Hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:1-2, 5).

“In this passage, St. Paul gives us much to reflect upon. We know that his Letter to the Romans marked a decisive turning point in his work of evangelization. Until then, he had carried out his activity in the eastern part of the Empire, but now he turns to Rome and all that Rome meant in the eyes of the world.

“Before him lay a great challenge, which he took up for the sake of preaching the Gospel, which knows no barriers or confines.

“The Church of Rome was not founded by Paul, yet he felt impelled to hasten there in order to bring to everyone the Gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, a message of hope that fulfills the ancient promises, leads to glory, and, grounded in love, does not disappoint.

“Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross. St. Paul said to the Romans: ‘For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life’” (Rom. 5:10). …

“By his perennial presence in the life of the pilgrim Church, the Holy Spirit illumines all believers with the light of hope. He keeps that light burning, like an ever-burning lamp, to sustain and invigorate our lives.

“Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God's love.

“St. Paul says, ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:35, 37-39).

“Here we see the reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials: founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life.”

I was rather struck by somebody who recently told me—just made a passing comment—that there is no limit to what the Holy Spirit can do with our words, as we speak them in our home with our children, with our friends in social interaction, with our colleagues at work, with people we may meet with chance encounters.

The Holy Spirit can use our words to resound down through the centuries.

“As St. Augustine observes: ‘Whatever our state of life, we cannot live without these three dispositions of the soul, namely, to believe, to hope, and to love’ (St. Augustine, Sermon 198).

“St. Paul writes, ‘We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance., and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom. 5:3-4).

“For the Apostle., trials and tribulations mark the lives of those who preach the Gospel amid incomprehension and persecution (cf. 2 Cor. 6:3-10).

“Yet in those very contexts, beyond the darkness we glimpse a light: we come to realize that evangelization is sustained by the power flowing from Christ's cross and resurrection.”

If we look at the whole history of the Church, which is the history of the Holy Spirit working in the world, we can see how, “beyond the darkness,” there has been a light, a light that has flowed through all the apostolic instruments in the Church: in education, in healthcare, in parishes, in all sorts of places.

“In this way, we learn to practice a virtue closely linked to hope, namely patience.”

I heard a priest in Asia once say that patience is a great social force. Many things come with time.

Says the Holy Father, “Patience has been put to flight by frenetic haste, and this has proved detrimental, since it leads us to impatience, anxiety, and even gratuitous violence, resulting in more unhappiness and self-centeredness.”

This document of the Holy Father gives much room for contemplation, for that spiritual preparation for that time of spiritual bonanza, which the Jubilee year of 2025 could be.

“A renewed appreciation of the value of patience,” he says, “could only prove beneficial for ourselves and for others.

“St. Paul often speaks of patience in the context of our need for perseverance and confident trust in God's promises. Yet, before all else, he testifies to God's patience, as ‘the God of all patience and encouragement,’ as he says to the Romans (Rom. 15:5).

“Patience, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, sustains our hope and strengthens it as a virtue and a way of life. May we learn to pray frequently” during this coming year “for the grace of patience, which is both the daughter of hope and at the same time its firm foundation.”

He says, “This interplay of hope and patience makes us see clearly that the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps towards the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.”

Pope John Paul II has liked to emphasize how Scripture is full of nuptials: references to wedding feasts, references to the bridegroom. He said that marriage is in this world is just a preparation for marriage in the next. God wants to marry us. We are all called to the eternal wedding feast.

“Setting out on a journey,” says Pope Francis, “is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life. A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort, and simplicity of life. … we learn to treasure the richness of different experiences and cultures, and are inspired to lift up that beauty, in prayer, to God, in thanksgiving for his wondrous works. … where we can drink from the wellsprings of hope, above all by approaching the sacrament of Reconciliation, the essential starting-point of any true journey of conversion.”

He says, “Now the time has come for a new Jubilee, when once more the Holy Door will be flung open to invite everyone to an intense experience of the love of God that awakens in hearts the sure hope of salvation in Christ.

“The Holy Year,” he says, “will also guide our steps towards yet another fundamental celebration for all Christians: 2033 will mark the two thousandth anniversary of the redemption won by the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.”

He says, “We are about to make a pilgrimage marked by great events, in which the grace of God precedes and accompanies his people as they press forward firm in faith, active in charity, and ‘steadfast in hope,’” as St. Paul says to the Thessalonians (cf. 1 Thess. 1:3).

“We remember,” he says, “before our God and Father how active is the faith, how unsparing the love, how persevering the hope which you have, from our Lord Jesus Christ,” said St. Paul to the Thessalonians (cf. 1 Thess. 1:3).

The Holy Father says, “I hereby decree that the Holy Door of the Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican will be opened on the 24th of December 2024, thus inaugurating the Ordinary Jubilee.

“On the following Sunday, the 29th of December 2024, I will open the Holy Door of my cathedral, St. John Lateran, which on the 9th of November this year will celebrate the 1700th anniversary of its dedication.

“Then, on the 1st of January 2025, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, the Holy Door of the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major will be opened. Finally, on the 5th of January 2025, there will be the opening of the Holy Door of the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. These last three Holy Doors will be closed on Sunday, the 28th of December 2025.

“I further decree,” he says, “that on Sunday, the 29th of December 2024, in every cathedral and co-cathedral, diocesan bishops are to celebrate Holy Mass as the solemn opening of the Jubilee Year, using the ritual indications that will be provided for that occasion. …

“A pilgrimage,” he says, “that sets out from a church chosen and then proceeds to the cathedral can serve to symbolize the journey of hope that, illumined by the word of God, unites all the faithful.

“In the course of this pilgrimage, passages from the present Document can be read, along with the announcements of the Jubilee Indulgence to be gained in accordance with the prescriptions found in the ritual indications already mentioned.”

“May the light of Christian hope,” says the Holy Father, “illumine every man and woman, as a message of God's love addressed to all!”

Then the Holy Father proceeds to talk about the signs of hope. He says, “In addition to finding hope in God's grace, we are also called to discover hope in the signs of the times that the Lord gives us.

“As the Second Vatican Council observed, ‘In every age, the Church has the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. In this way, in language adopted to every generation, she can respond to people's persistent questions about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other’ (Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, Point 4).

“We need to recognize,” says the Holy Father, “the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence. The signs of the times, which include the yearning of human hearts in need of God's saving presence, ought to become signs of hope.

“The first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself emerged in the tragedy of war.

“How is it possible that their desperate plea for help is not motivating world leaders to resolve the numerous regional conflicts in view of their possible consequences at the global level?

“Is it too much to dream,” he questions, “that arms can fall silent and cease to rain down destruction and death?

“May the Jubilee remind us that those who are peacemakers will be called children of God,” as we’re told in the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:9).

“The need for peace challenges us all, and demands that concrete steps be taken. May diplomacy be tireless,” he says, “in its commitment to seek, with courage and creativity, every opportunity to undertake negotiations aimed at a lasting peace.

“Looking to the future with hope also entails having enthusiasm for life and a readiness to share it. Sadly, in many situations this is lacking.

“A first effect of this is the loss of the desire to transmit life. A number of countries are experiencing,” he says, “an alarming decline in the birth rate as a result of today's frenetic pace, fears about the future, the lack of job security and adequate social policies, and social models whose agenda is dictated by the quest for profit rather than concern for relationships.

“In certain quarters, the tendency ‘to blame population growth, instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the real issues’ (Pope Francis, Enyclical, Laudato si’, May 24, 2015).

“Openness to life,” he says, “and responsible parenthood is the design that the Creator has implanted in the hearts and bodies of men and women, a mission that the Lord has entrusted to spouses and to their love. … This is a matter of hope: it is born of hope and it generates hope.

“Consequently, the Christian community should be at the forefront in pointing out the need for a social covenant to support and foster hope, one that is inclusive and not ideological, working for a future filled with the laughter of babies and children, in order to fill the empty cradles in so many parts of our world.

“All of us, however,” he said, “need to recover the joy of living, since men and women,” as we're told in Genesis, “were ‘created in the image and likeness of God.’”

“God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that creep along the ground’” (Gen. 1:26).

“In every part of the world, believers and their Pastors,” he said, “should be one in demanding dignified conditions for those in prison, respect for their human rights and above all the abolition of the death penalty, a provision at odds with Christian faith and one that eliminates all hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation” (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 2267).

And the Holy Father says, “In order to offer prisoners a concrete sign of closeness, I would myself like to open a Holy Door in a prison, as a sign inviting prisoners to look to the future with hope and a renewed sense of confidence. …

“Signs of hope,” says the Holy Father, “are also needed by those who are the very embodiment of hope, namely, the young. … Without the hope that their dreams can come true, they will inevitably grow discouraged and listless. Escaping into drugs, risk-taking, and the pursuit of momentary pleasure does greater harm to them in particular, since it closes them to life's beauty and richness, and can lead to depression and even self-destructive actions. …

“Signs of hope should also be present for migrants, who leave their homelands behind in search of a better life for themselves and for their families. … A spirit of welcome, which embraces everyone with respect for his or her dignity, should be accompanied by a sense of responsibility, lest anyone be denied the right to a dignified existence. …

“Echoing the age-old message of the prophets, the Jubilee reminds us that the goods of the earth are not destined for a privileged few, but for everyone. The rich must be generous and not avert their eyes from the faces of their brothers and sisters in need.

“Here I think,” says the Holy Father, “especially of those who lack water and food: hunger is a scandal, an open wound of the body of our humanity, and it summons all of us to a serious examination of conscience.

“I renew my appeal that ‘with the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, let us establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favor development in the most impoverished countries, so that their citizens will not resort to violence or illusory situations, or have to leave their countries in order to live in a world in order to seek a more dignified life’ (Pope Francis, Encyclical, Fratelli tutti, October 3, 2020).

“Another heartfelt appeal that I would make in light of the coming Jubilee is directed to the more affluent nations. I ask that they acknowledge the gravity of so many of their past decisions and determine to forgive the debts of countries that will never be able to repay them. More than a question of generosity, this is a matter of justice. …

“The coming Jubilee Year will also coincide with a significant date for all Christians, namely, the 1700^th^ anniversary of the celebration of the first great Ecumenical Council, that of Nicaea. It is worth noting that from apostolic times, bishops have gathered on various occasions in order to discuss doctrinal questions and disciplinary matters. …

“The Council of Nicaea sought to preserve the Church's unity, which was seriously threatened by the denial of the full divinity of Jesus Christ and hence his consubstantiality with the Father. Some three hundred bishops took part, convoked at the behest of the Emperor Constantine. …

“The Council Fathers chose to begin that Creed by using for the first time the expression ‘We believe’ (Nicene Creed) as a sign that all the Churches were in communion and that all Christians professed the same faith.

“The Council of Nicaea was a milestone in the Church's history. The celebration of its anniversary invites Christians to join in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Blessed Trinity and in particular to Jesus Christ the Son of God, ‘consubstantial with the Father’ (Ibid.), who revealed to us that mystery of love.

“At the same time, Nicaea represents a summons to all Churches and Ecclesial Communities to persevere on the path to visible unity and in the quest of fitting ways to respond fully to the prayer of Jesus ‘that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I in you,’ we're told in St. John, ‘may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me’ (John 17:21).

“Hope finds its supreme witness,” says the Holy Father, “in the Mother of God. In the Blessed Virgin, we see that hope is not a naive optimism but a gift of grace amid the realities of life.

“Like every mother, when Mary looked at her Son, she thought of his future. Surely she kept pondering in her heart the words spoken to her in the Temple by the elderly Simeon: ‘This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too’ (Luke 2:34-35).

“At the foot of the cross, she witnessed the passion and death of Jesus, her innocent Son. Overwhelmed with grief, she nonetheless renewed her ‘Be it done unto me,’ never abandoning her hope and trust in God.

“In this way, Mary cooperated for our sake in the fulfilment of all that her Son had foretold in announcing that he would have to ‘undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again’ (Mark 8:31).

“In the travail of that sorrow offered in love, Mary became Our Mother, the Mother of Hope.”

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF