The Jubilee Year 2025
Pope Francis opens the Holy Door of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome thereby officially inaugurating the 2025 Jubilee of Hope.
When is the Jubilee Year?
The Jubilee Year is underway. It runs from the opening of the Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, on Tuesday 24 December 2024 to the Feast of Epiphany 2026.
In the Archdiocese of Birmingham, Archbishop Bernard celebrated Mass for the Solemn Opening of the Year, at St Chad’s Cathedral on Sunday 29 December 2024.
What is a Jubilee Year?
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’”
What is the theme of the Jubilee Year in 2025?
The theme is Pilgrims of Hope. Pope Francis has invited Catholics to renew our hope and discover a vision that can "restore access to the fruits of the earth to everyone". We are also invited to rediscover a spirituality of God's creation in which we understand ourselves as "pilgrims on the earth" rather than masters of the world.
Where are the Jubilee Churches in our Archdiocese?
The following Jubilee churches and sites have been chosen by His Grace as particular places of pilgrimage, and for the granting of the indulgence:
St Chad’s Cathedral – Shrine of St Chad
St Anne’s Church, Caversham – Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham
Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Hednesford – Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes
St Michael’s Church, Penn, Wolverhampton – Shrine of Blessed Carlo Acutis
The Immaculate Conception & St Egwin Church – Shrine of Our Lady of Evesham
Harvington Hall, near Kidderminster
Bl. Dominic Barberi Church & St John Henry Newman College, Littlemore, Oxford
How are Our Lady of Grace journeying through the Jubilee Year?
On Friday 24th January we celebrated the official launch day of the Jubilee Year 2025 with the theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope'.
The day began with a beautiful live stream assembly from the Birmingham Diocese Education Service. Our children thought about their hopes for the year and how we can put these hopes into action. The children created rainbows as a sign of hope. Just as we read in Genesis, ‘I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.’ We are excited to continue on our journey, each and every one of us being Pilgrims of Hope.