This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you. The Bible describes how every fifty years a jubilee or holy year occurs when debts are forgiven, faith is renewed and people return to their own land. This beautiful idea was, as near as we have records, never held. In the fourteenth century the pope at the time resurrected the idea of a holy year as a time of pilgrimage occuring every 25 instead of 50 years. The Holy Door at St. Peter’s is opened to symoblize the passage to salvation and the invitation to experience divine mercy. Each Holy year has a theme and the theme for this Jubilee Year is “Pilgrims of Hope.” Pope Francis proclaimed this Jubilee year to invite Catholics to renew our hope and deeper connecction with creation and one another, encouraging a spirituality that respects and nurtures the environment.
