Jubilee Year 2025 – Pilgrims Of Hope.

A Jubilee Year is proclaimed by the Universal Church every 25 years. It is a particular year set aside to encourage the faithful to embark on pilgrimages, to repent of their sins and forgive the sins of others and to renew a focus on the spiritual life.

The 2025 Jubilee will be centered on the theme” Pilgrims of Hope.” Pope Francis so beautifully expressed it: “We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us, and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and far-sighted vision.” The theme “pilgrims of hope” is a calling on all Catholics to renew in the hope of Christ, using St. Paul the Apostle as a guide for this special year.

Everyone knows what it is to hope, in the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring. 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. Often we come across people who are discouraged, pessimistic and cynical about the future, as if nothing could possibly bring them happiness. 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.

Hope and forgiveness are the two key words that Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization and organizer of the 2025 Jubilee, offered to the audience at the Rimini Meeting to explain the Holy Year that Pope Francis has declared with the Bull of Indiction “Spes non confundit” (Hope does not disappoint). 

During the meeting’s roundtable “The Jubilee 2025,” Archbishop Fisichella echoed the theme of the Communion and Liberation event, recalled that “without hope, we cannot grasp the essence of life. Hope, he said, “is essential to Christian life because, together with faith and charity, it represents the believer’s way of life.”

Let’s see what the word Hope spells out to us:

H – Healing
Hope brings healing to communities, fostering reconciliation and renewal after hardship.

O – Opportunities
Jubilee 2025 can create opportunities for growth, social justice, and economic revival, encouraging people to envision a better future.

P – Peace
Hope promotes peace, inspiring individuals to work together toward harmony and understanding across divides.

E – Empowerment
Empowering marginalized voices through hope can lead to transformative change, allowing individuals to reclaim their agency and participate fully in society.

In a climate of resentment, violence, and revenge, the Jubilee, comes to remind us of God’s great gift. Forgiveness, indulgence, is grace, not a conquest. Profiting from it means nothing. And the experience of God’s forgiveness comes through a journey: pilgrimage, passing through the Holy Door, the profession of faith, acts of charity. The message is that God comes to meet you.

In this year of prayer and preparation for the Jubilee, let us unite in prayer for an international outpouring of graces for belief, love and adoration of the Eucharist, to reach every Catholic, all non-believing or lapsed Catholics and non-Catholics!

As we celebrate this milestone let us join in this upcoming celebration on Community, personal and organization level to make it all a legacy Par Excellence!

Sr.Floripe D’Silva CCR