2025 Year of Jubilee: Pilgrims of Hope
The Holy Father has decided that 2025 will be a year of Jubilee, something which happens every 25 years.
The theme is “Pilgrims of Hope”.
The Jubilee Year began with the opening of the Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, on Tuesday 24 December 2024 and runs to the Feast of Epiphany 2026.
The Jubilee Logo
This year’s Jubilee logo is rich with imagery that can help you to understand the meaning of the Jubilee. Father Simon Gore explains: “The logo shows a group of people travelling together, reminding young people that they’re never alone on their journey of faith and will always have support in their faith communities.
There’s also the symbol of the wave, a reminder of the potential difficulties of being a follower of Christ in the modern age. But most importantly, there’s the anchor – the anchor of hope – to show that no matter the difficulty, we can always find hope and comfort in our faith.”
What is a Jubilee?
The Jubilee Years, also known as Holy Years, started in 1300AD and recall the great jubilee of Israel: a time for land to be rested and debts to be cancelled, when God called people to be reconciled with one another and with Him. They now occur every 25 years, although the next will be 2033 – the anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection and the decent of the Holy Spirit. These Years, the Church explains, are years “of reconciliation between adversaries, of conversion and receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, ‘…and consequently of solidarity, hope, justice, commitment to serve God with joy and in peace with our brothers and sisters’
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