The Southern Cross | December 2024

Up to 33 million pilgrims are expected to visit Rome next year for the Jubilee, a Catholic tradition held every 25 years to provide an opportunity for celebration, spiritual renewal and forgiveness.

In declaring 2025 a Jubilee Year, Pope Francis has asked for the year to be lived as a ‘year of hope’ to which has been added by the Dicastery for the Consecrated Life in Rome: ‘on the path of peace’.

A Jubilee Year has its origins in the Scriptures, (Leviticus 25:10), where every 50th year was set aside as a time of restoration, freedom and renewal for the people of Israel. But the first one celebrated in western Christianity was in the year 1300 when Pope Boniface VII convoked a special year of grace and conversion, involving prayer, pilgrimage and sacramental repentance.

The goal of a Jubilee year is to inspire and encourage holiness of life among the faithful and therefore to strengthen the Church’s witness to God’s loving mercy in and for the world.

The Vatican has issued a General Calendar of Jubilees and invited 36 organisations and groups to celebrate their lives and ministries. They include artists, volunteers, the sick and health care workers, teenagers, children, sports people, catechists and educators.

Parishes are being invited to celebrate one or more of these Jubilees, honouring the people within their local parish and/or school.

Consecrated life is being celebrated in Australia on February 2 and in Rome from October 8-12.

The Catholic Office for Youth and Young Adults will hold an event for the Jubilee of Youth from July 28 to August 3. The office is also planning pilgrimages to the three chosen sites in SA for the Jubilee Year: St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral, Sevenhill and Penola.