Jubilee 2025: Pilgrims of Hope

Lecture for the Catholic Theological Institute (CTI)

Port Moresby, June 27, 2025

Archbishop Maurizio Bravi

Apostolic Nuncio to Papua New Guinea.

The year 2025 is a Jubilee year for the entire Church. Pope Francis, who proclaimed it, urged us to welcome it as an event of “great spiritual, ecclesial, and social significance.” It must be lived under the banner of hope, “doing everything so that everyone regains the strength and certainty to look to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart, and a far-sighted mind.”

In this lecture, I will firstly present the Jubilee as described in the Bible. Secondly, I will provide a brief history of the Holy Years, and thirdly I will highlight the distinctive aspects of the Jubilee. Finally, I will conclude with a reflection on Christian hope.

However, now, I will offer a more general reflection on the historical significance of the Jubilee and the Christian view of time.

1. Jubilee and Time

From Scripture, we learn that to proclaim a Jubilee, one must count “seven weeks of years”. Once this period has passed, one is entitled to proclaim the Jubilee year (cf. Lev. 25:8-10). Consequentially, what does it mean that every 25 years there is a “holy year,” with holy days and months that differ from the ordinary ones?

Obviously, our understanding of time today is very different from that of the past, when referring to God and His providence came naturally. In fact, God Himself gives and marks time, arranging the alternation of days and nights. As we read in the Book of Psalms, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 89:12). The daily activity of contemporary man seems being exhausted by the present moment. Therefore, one is often convinced that the present is the only time one can have and needs. The words of the Roman poet Horace come to mind: “As we speak, time flees, as if envious of us. It grasps the day, hoping for as little as possible tomorrow”. Human life is then deprived of any capacity for planning and satisfied with the present moment. Nevertheless, is it truly “human” to not hope for a better tomorrow?

For the Christian philosopher Augustine (354–430), time is “distensio animi”, “relaxation of the soul”. Human beings live in the present moment with attention, but they also hold awareness of the past through memory and nurture expectations for the future through hope. In the context of the Christian mystery of the Incarnation, time flows as if on a line from the fall of Adam toward the “consummation of time”, culminating in the Last Judgment and entering the dimension of eternity, which is God’s time.

In the Christian tradition, time is therefore the place of an encounter: that between God and man. It is where a freedom that gives itself meets a freedom that responds out of love. Human history recounts the story of this encounter’s plot, reaching its summit in the Incarnation of God himself: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal. 4:4). The fullness of all will be final blessedness “so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). Time is the condition of an “already” begun, as well as a “not yet” accomplished. Therefore, the present is not without meaning. Rather, it is a decisive moment in the personal history of every human being since it contains the germ of one’s ultimate destiny: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:7-8).

Jubilee generates a spiritual dynamism of faith renewal, reminding us that all things come from and return to God (ut cuncta nostra operatio a Te semper incipiat et per Te coepta finiatur! - May all our work always begin with You and be finished through You!).

2. Jubilee in the Bible

The word “jubilee” is a Latin transcription of three similar Hebrew words: יובל‎, yôbel means “ram” (aries), from whose horns a particular type of trumpet was made and sounded to announce the jubilee; yôbil means “call,” in the sense of conversion; and yôbal means “deliverance” or “remission of sins.”

As an extraordinary event, the Jubilee finds its biblical roots in the Book of Leviticus (25:8-31). A jubilee occurs at the end of “seven weeks of years or seven times seven years, which makes a period of forty-nine years. On the tenth day of the seventh month, you shall blow the [yôbel] trumpet of acclamation. You shall declare the fiftieth year holy and proclaim deliverance in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; everyone shall return to their property and family” (Lev. 25:8-10).

What was the purpose of the Jubilee Year? During that year, the land was to rest, so planting and harvesting were forbidden, except for wild produce from the fields. Each person was also to regain their property (land or house) if they had sold it, and every Jewish slave was to be set free. Thus, the law provided for the periodic return of property and people to their original state so that neither absolute destitution nor slavery could become a permanent condition for a family or individual. However, it is unclear whether this law has been respected. What is certain is that the institution of the Jubilee fell into disuse after the Babylonian exile.

The New Testament explicitly refers the jubilee when Jesus enters the synagogue in Nazareth and reads a passage from Isaiah proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk 4:18–19; Is 61:1–2). He applies it to himself as the fulfillment of prophecy. Jesus fulfills the meaning of the Jewish jubilee precepts, revealing himself to be the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah and asserting that the “fullness of time” has now occurred.

3. Jubilee in History: From 1300 to the Present Day

3.1. The First Jubilee

In the Catholic tradition, the Jubilee is a time of remission and atonement for sins. Therefore, it is a time of reconciliation, conversion, and penance, which is turned into a commitment to charity and solidarity.

The history of the Christian Jubilee began in 1300 with Pope Boniface VIII (Benedetto Caetani; 1294–1303). The pope’s decision was in response to the faithful’s expectations during the transition to the new century. Crowds of people gathered in Rome were calling for an extraordinary gesture of clemency and forgiveness. Thus, Pope Boniface declared the year 1300 a Jubilee Year (Bull Antiquorum habet fida relatio, issued February 22, 1300). He stipulated that, to obtain an indulgence, Romans had to visit the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul 30 times, while pilgrims from outside Rome were required to make only 15 visits. No contributions were imposed. In addition, plenary indulgence for temporal punishment was granted to pilgrims who could not finish the visit due to reasons of circumstances beyond their control, as well as to those who died while traveling or before completing the visit. The bull of indiction also established that the Jubilee should be held every hundred years.

In short, from the beginning, there have been those typical elements of every Jubilee Year:

- pilgrimages and visits to specific sacred places (churches, catacombs).

- a set time interval between jubilees (100 years);

- the granting of indulgences.

These features will be maintained over time, although with some variations.

3.2. The “ordinary” Holy Years

Thus, by virtue of Pope Boniface’s provision, the second Holy Year should have been celebrated in 1400, exactly 100 years after the first. However, it was not. Accepting requests from various sources, Pope Clement VI (born Pierre Roger in 1342; elected pope on May 7, 1342; died on December 6, 1352, in Avignon) called for the Jubilee in 1350 and he stipulated that the Holy Year would be celebrated every fifty years and that, in addition to the Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Lateran Basilica should also be visited (Bull Unigenitus Dei Filius on January 27, 1343)

This fifty-year interval was maintained for the Holy Years of 1400 (convened by Pope Boniface IX, 1389–1404) and 1450 (convened by Pope Nicholas V, 1447–1455, with the bull “Immensa et innumerabilia” on January 19, 1449).

Subsequently, Pope Paul II (Pietro Barbo; 1417–1471) decided to shorten the interval even further. He decreed that “jubilees” (a term used for the first time) should be celebrated every twenty-five years in consideration of the brevity of human life (Bull Ineffabilis Providentia Summi Patris on April 19, 1470). Starting with the Jubilee of 1475, which was opened and concluded by Pope Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere; 1471–1484), this twenty-five-year interval was maintained.

For the first time, on the occasion of the Holy Year of 1500, called by Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia; 1492-1503; Bull Inter multiplices, December 20, 1499) was elaborated the ceremonial to be performed in the jubilee religious services.

It was established that there should be a holy door in each of the four Roman basilicas, to be opened to the faithful only during the recurrence of the Holy Year.

Chronicles recount facts and anecdotes of great or small importance on the occasion of each holy year. For instance, in 1675, under Pope Clement X (1670–1676), pilgrims were welcomed for the first time in St. Peter’s Square within the embrace of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s (1598–1680) colonnade.

From 1300 until the present day, 24 “ordinary” holy years have been celebrated at regular intervals of 25 or 50 years (some also use the term “major,” while the extraordinary ones are called “minor”). The last one was the “Great Jubilee of the Year 2000”, which was called, opened, and closed by Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla; 1920–2005) with the bull Incarnationis mysterium on November 29, 1998. The jubilee of 2025 is the 25th in the series of ordinary jubilees.

However, the chronology of jubilees is marked by two missed celebrations. The first was in 1800: Pope Pius VI (Gian Angelo Braschi; 1717–1799) was arrested and deported to France on February 20, 1797. After exhausting events, he died “in exile” outside Rome on August 29, 1799, in Valence, France.

The same happened at the Jubilee of 1850: Pope Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti; 1792–1878) did not call for the jubilee because of the revolutionary uprisings that led to the Roman Republic. He had taken refuge in Gaeta since November 1848 and he returned to Rome on April 12, 1850, after 17 months of exile. However, Pius IX was able to celebrate the Holy Year of 1875 (Bull Gravibus Ecclesiae et Huius Saeculi Calamitatibus on December 24, 1874). During this Holy Year, indulgences were granted not only in Rome but also by visiting three churches in dioceses around the world.

3.3. The ‘extraordinary’ Holy Years

The history of the Church also records eleven other jubilees, which were proclaimed to mark special events or extraordinary commemorations, some of which were of a political nature.

Pope Urban VI (Bartolomeo Prignano; 1378–1389) called for a jubilee in 1390 (Bull Salvator noster unigenitus, 8 April 1389), but it was opened by his successor, Boniface IX (Pietro Tomacelli; 1350–1404), who decreed that it should be celebrated every thirty-three years thereafter in commemoration of Christ’s years on earth.

Pope Martin V (Oddone Colonna; 1369–1431) called for a jubilee in 1423 to celebrate the resolution of the ‘Western Schism’ and the return of the papacy to Rome.

Pope Sixtus V (Felice Peretti; 1521–1590) and Pope Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi; 1599–1667) declared the years of their election (1585 and 1655, respectively) to be holy years.

Pope Benedict XIV (Prospero Lambertini; 1675–1758) declared 1745 an extraordinary Holy Year (five years before the Jubilee of 1750) to implore peace between Christian princes. (Brief Cum Multorum Charitate, 18 February 1745). Pope Leo XIII (Luigi Pecci; 1810–1903) called for the extraordinary jubilee of 1886 to encourage the faithful to demonstrate their commitment to virtue in public affairs (letter Quod Auctoritate, 22 December 1885). This same pope then opened and closed the Holy Year of 1900 (Bull Properante ad exitum saeculo, 11 May 1899).

In the 20th century, in addition to the four regular Holy Years (in 1900, 1925, 1950 and 1975), there were four extraordinary Jubilees (in 1929, 1933, 1966 and 1983).

-      Two of these were dedicated to special anniversaries linked to the death and resurrection of Christ: 1933 (Pope Pius XI, 1857–1939; cf. the bull Quod nuper of 15 January 1933) and 1983 (Pope John Paul II, 1920–2005; cf. the bull Aperite portas Redemptori of 6 January 1983).

-      The Extraordinary Jubilee of 1929 was called by Pope Pius XI to mark the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination (Apostolic Constitution Auspicantibus Nobis, 6 January 1929).

-      The Holy Year of 1966, the shortest jubilee to be celebrated to date, was desired by Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini; 1897–1978) to mark the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council (Bull Mirificus Eventus, 7 December 1965). The Pope fixed the period of the Jubilee shorter than one year, from 1 January to 29 May 1966. It was also established that the Jubilee should be celebrated in every diocese, “as its natural seat being the cathedral church”, and should take place around the bishop, “father and shepherd of his flock”. Paul VI also opened and closed the Holy Year of 1975.

Finally, in the new millennium, mention must be made of the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, called by Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 1936-2024; cf. Bull Misericordiae Vultus of 11 April 2015) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. This extraordinary jubilee began on 8 December 2015 and ended on 20 November 2016. Actually, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Bangui on 29 November 2015 during his apostolic journey to the Central African Republic, effectively anticipating the start of the extraordinary jubilee.

4. The Jubilee’s traits

4.1 Indulgences:

Every Jubilee is a time of grace, forgiveness and mercy. The Catholic Church has the power to forgive sins in the name of God through the Sacrament of Penance, also known as Confession. However, it is also part of Catholic doctrine that some consequences of sin may remain even after confession. In this sense, one speaks of the “temporal penalty of sin”. It is important to note that indulgence is not absolution from sin, which is received through confession, but rather, it cancels the “temporal penalty” associated with sin.

To help you understand this better, imagine you break a glass at a friend’s house. You apologise and your friend forgives you (this is like confession: your guilt for breaking the glass is deleted). However, even after your friend has forgiven you, the glass is still broken and you must repair it (this is like a temporal penalty). The Church can release you from this obligation by granting an action equivalent to repairing the damage caused.

Therefore, indulgences are a practice through which the Church helps the faithful remove the punishments due to their sins and encourages them to show greater fervour in their charity. General norms can be found in canons 992–994 of the Code of Canon Law.

The Church’s approach to indulgences has taken many forms, some of which persist to this day. Examples include pilgrimages and works of mercy and charity, which are carried out as an exercise in atonement for the punishments incurred by sin. However, some forms of indulgence have been abolished, suppressed or strictly regulated. The most recent papal document on indulgences is the Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina, issued by Pope Paul VI on 1 January 1967.

For the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis has also ordered plenary indulgences to be granted, calling it a ‘jubilee grace’ that ‘allows us to discover how unlimited God’s mercy is’. The Apostolic Penitentiary has established prescriptions and guidelines for pilgrims. All the faithful who are ‘truly repentant’ and ‘moved by a spirit of charity’, who are ‘purified through the sacrament of penance and refreshed by Holy Communion’, and who pray according to the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, may receive the indulgence. This indulgence may be applied ‘in the form of suffrage to the souls in Purgatory’.

Faithful pilgrims will be able to obtain an indulgence by undertaking a pilgrimage to any Jubilee site or one of the four Major Papal Basilicas in Rome, the Holy Land or other ecclesiastical districts. They must also take part in a prayer, celebration or reconciliation event. They must also devoutly visit any Jubilee site (such as shrines and basilicas, even outside Rome) and attending Eucharistic adoration or moment of meditation, concluding with the Our Father, the Profession of Faith and an invocation to Mary. If they are unable to do this due to serious impediments, they will be able to obtain the Jubilee indulgence by reciting the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form, and other prayers in conformity with the aims of the Holy Year. They should also offer up their sufferings or hardships in their own lives.

Another way to obtain an indulgence is through ‘works of mercy and penance, by which one bears witness to the conversion undertaken’.

The faithful are encouraged to perform works of charity or mercy more frequently, especially for those who are burdened by various needs. Similarly, they are urged to visit ‘brothers and sisters in need or in difficulty (the sick, the imprisoned, the elderly in solitude, those with disabilities...) as if making a pilgrimage to Christ present in them’. Thus, the penitential spirit ‘is the soul of the Jubilee’.

(https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2024/05/13/0392/00808.html)

4.2. The pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is another defining feature of the Christian Jubilee. In order to gain indulgences, it is necessary to visit one or more sacred places, most often the city of Rome as the seat of the Apostle Peter and his successors.

Christian pilgrimage began with the desire to visit the places where Jesus lived and the sites of his earthly events. This is commonly known as a ‘devotional pilgrimage’. For some centuries, Jerusalem was the only true Christian pilgrimage destination. This continued until the city became part of the Ottoman Empire (1516–1917). The Crusades (1095 onwards) and the short-lived Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1187) must also be mentioned here, as they arose with the intention of making pilgrimage to the Holy Places possible and safe.

This was a burdening pilgrimage, as the journey to Jerusalem represented a significant risk to personal safety. The journey was surrounded by insecurity. It is not surprising, therefore, that some influential early Church Fathers viewed pilgrimages to the land of Jesus with distrust. St. Gregory of Nyssa (+395) resolutely tried to dissuade monks from going to Jerusalem because it was not in keeping with the Scriptures, and because the monk would be exposed to moral and ‘spiritual’ risks. The pilgrim was almost compared to a vagabond.

Later, from the sixth to seventh century, pilgrimage also took on penitential and ascetic characteristics through the work of St. Columbanus (525-612). Thus, the pilgrimage ‘ex poenitentia’ emerged. This type of pilgrimage originated as an obligation imposed by ecclesiastical authority for particularly grave and notorious sins. This remained in force until the 13th century.

In this way, pilgrimage became a form of penance. This obligation forced the penitent to ‘wander’, living in a state of constant insecurity and exile. Pilgrim penitents could be recognised by their bare feet and chains, hence the phrase ‘nudi homines cum ferro’ (‘naked men with chains’). Once the penitence was complete, the chains were broken and left in place as an ex-voto in front of witnesses and with a written document from the local church authorities. A document from the shrine of Rocamadour (Cahors, France) attests to this, stating that on the altar there were ‘catenulas (...) que collo peregrinorum imponebantur’ (“chains... that were imposed on the necks of pilgrims”). These penitential signs were later abandoned and replaced by symbols sewed onto the pilgrim’s clothing, such as a yellow cross.

Rome was a major penitential destination as early as the 9th century. This was partly because some serious sins were classified as ‘casus reservati’ (sacrilege, the murder of priests and monks, and stealing from churches), the absolution of which was referred to the pope’s authority. Thus, the bishops sent the sinner to Rome to receive penance directly from the Pope; this very act constituted a penitential pilgrimage. In the mid-12th century, a new tribunal was established in Rome: The Apostolic Penitentiary. This tribunal absolved people from sin, but its sentences also had penal value and consequences, and this made the Penitentiary one of the most important institutions of the central government of the Church in the early and late Middle Ages.

Over the following centuries, more pronounced forms of penitential pilgrimage were gradually abandoned in favour of devotional pilgrimage, which was encouraged by the establishment of Marian shrines (Loreto, Caravaggio, Guadalupe, Aparecida, La Salette, Lourdes, Fátima and Czestochowa) and shrines dedicated to saints (St. Francis in Assisi, St. Anthony in Padua and St. Rita in Cascia). In modern and contemporary times, a more varied type of pilgrimage emerged, which could be called a ‘pilgrimage of supplication’ or ‘pilgrimage of intercession’ (consider the role of shrines such as Lourdes and St. Padre Pio).

The pilgrim’s journey is based on a firm belief, for which a specific destination and purpose are identified. The pilgrim moves towards a specific geographical location (such as a sacred place or shrine) with the intention of fulfilling a commitment, even if it is a difficult one, and is supported by faith.

In doing so, they become a parable for a condition that transcends the earthly realm and enters a symbolic universe that is sacred and reserved for God. Therefore, pilgrimage is an act of faith involving movement, exploration and discovery. It is the journey of a person setting out towards God, recognising their own frailty and seeking divine mercy.

Conclusion: The Holy Year 2025 is a year of hope!

The Holy Year 2025 is therefore dedicated to hope. But what is hope? Throughout human history, there have been many answers to this question. Let us consider at least two of them:

a) Hope as an effort made by individuals and communities to create a better future than the present. Humans hope by trusting in their ability to progress. Hope, then, is faith in progress: progress in science, welfare and culture. The restoration of the ‘lost paradise’ is no longer expected through faith alone, but through progress and human effort.

(b) Hope as the fruit of politics, especially economics. Here, hope becomes emancipation, i.e., liberation from constraints and restrictions.

The ideological ventures of the modern era have shown that placing hope in humanity alone can lead to totalitarianism, genocide, and the isolation of the individual. It was once believed that economic materialism could suffice for human happiness. However, humans are not merely the product of economic conditions, and favourable economic conditions cannot restore them from the outside. Salvation is not simply emancipation. Even science has proved inadequate in its claims; atomic warfare, artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation are all examples of science that should be feared rather than invoked. In the encyclical letter Spe salvi Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “If technical progress is not matched by progress in the ethical formation of man, in the growth of the inner man, then it is not progress, but a threat to man and to the world” (Spe salvi, no. 22).

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, hope is not primarily generated by anguish over the negativity of the present nor by unrealistic optimism about the future.

For us, hope takes the form of redemption and salvation. It is not just an intensification of desire. The hope in which we believe and live is not the fruit of human effort alone; it is not a flower that blooms only thanks to human effort. Rather, it is a gift from above. Such a gift requires human collaboration and effort, but it is always surprising and beyond human comprehension. Human beings alone would not know how to transcend sin and death! It is not human knowledge that saves us, but love. Yes, we are saved by love! The love of God the Father, who offered his only Son as a sacrifice to redeem us. Christian hope is a person who comes to us through love: transcendent, free and liberating. This gift was realised in Jesus Christ. Coming to us in the fullness of time, the Word made flesh opened up a path and lit great expectations for its final destination and full realisation. God manifests himself, but at the same time withdraws. He is a God who must be loved, sought after and discovered. It is precisely in this movement of attraction that Christian hope finds its place.

Our hope stems from our faith in a God who loves us and call each of us to enter in his mystery. This is a mystery that does not frighten us because it is a mystery of light and love. It is this mystery that we hope to enter into: the hope of Christians everywhere. We all need this greater, ultimate hope, beyond any penultimate horizon.

Christian hope is always accompanied by faith and charity. It is a virtue, or a habit of being truly human. As we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), hope “responds to the aspiration to happiness, which God has placed in the heart of every person; it assumes the expectations that inspire human activities; it purifies them in order to align them with the kingdom of heaven; it safeguards against discouragement; it provides support in moments of abandonment; it expands the heart in anticipation of eternal bliss’. The impulse of hope preserves one from selfishness and leads to the joy of charity” (no. 1803).

Thus, the pilgrim embodies this virtue, becoming the itinerant symbol of the fundamental ontological condition of humanity, of its ‘finiteness’ that nevertheless yearns for fulfilment and completeness. Since time immemorial, man has sought this fulfilment, and it is this that shapes the hope of achieving it. He knows that his life is a journey through this transient world, and he longs to overcome the sense of incompleteness that is inherent in all creatures.

The pilgrim is thus an “uncompleted being”, a person who is searching for what he feels is missing in order to realize the desire for full humanity. The journey then, between the desire for the destination and the effort to reach it, is symbolic of a tension of another nature, which starts from self-knowledge and leads to the source of its natural creatureliness: God!

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with this short story that shows how hope is capable of motivating our actions, especially in difficulties and moments of confusion and darkness (…maybe you have already heard it or you already know it):

In a silent room there were four candles burning.

The first one complained: “I am peace. But men prefer war: I have no choice but to let myself go out”. And so it happened.

The second one said: “I am faith. But men prefer fairy tales: I have no choice but to let myself go out.” And so it happened.

The third candle confessed: “I am love. But men are bad and incapable of loving: I have no choice but to let myself go out.”

Suddenly a child appeared in the room and, crying, said: “I am afraid of the dark.”

Then the fourth candle said: “Don’t cry and don’t be afraid. I will stay lit and I will allow you to relight the other candles with my light:

I am hope.”

In this Jubilee, we are all invited to become “artisans”, that is, builders of hope, restorers of a humanity torn by distrust and selfishness. I trust that you will be so with your life and become witnesses of a true rebirth, strating from your personal life.

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