Jubilee marks 2025 as extraordinary in the life of the Church
By Bishop Mark Beckman
The beginning of a new year is always a great time to reflect on the past year and look forward to the future.
This new year of 2025 is an extraordinary one in the life of the Church, a Year of Jubilee when Pope Francis has invited us to look forward to the great hope that sustains us as people of faith.
Pope Francis has opened the traditional holy doors at the major basilicas in Rome. But this year, for the first time in the history of the Church, a jubilee door has been opened in a prison.
The imagery of a door of hope being opened in a place of bondage is very profound. All of us in some measure or another know the experience of being in the bondage of sin. We know personally the experience of being “imprisoned” by various forms of affliction and bondage.
At the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, He made it clear that at the heart of His mission from the Father was to “bring liberty to captives.” Perhaps a first spiritual step this year might be for us to take some quiet moments of prayer in these days of winter to reflect on all the places in our own lives where we still experience a lack of the true freedom of being a beloved daughter or son of God.
What has robbed us or is robbing us of our hope? Where do we most need the grace of Christ?
The experience of the sacrament of reconciliation is one of those profound ways to experience the deeper healing our souls are seeking. Naming our woundedness and seeking a healing encounter with Christ is most essential in a Year of Jubilee.
A second dimension of the great jubilees going back to the Old Testament has been about healing relationships and setting others free from debt and bondage. This year is most important in the life of all of us as a people of faith in bringing a new hope to all those who are suffering.
This is a privileged time to allow the compassion of God to flow through us to our neighbors—the hurting, the strangers and newcomers, the migrants and refugees, the troubled and afflicted—who are present in our time and place. Our world is so filled these days with brothers and sisters who are wounded and in bondage in many ways.
Perhaps each one of us is called to be a “doorway” through which people will be able to experience the tender love of the heart of Jesus that helps them to be set free and find new hope … to open doors in the prisons of their hearts.
The cross is the extraordinary time and place where the wounds of humanity are healed by the self-offering of Christ for us. It is the great moment when the door of hope is opened for all humanity. May we stand together as a community of faith in this Jubilee Year, clinging to the One who opens His heart for all humanity.
I close with a quote from the special Mass for the Holy Year sent from Rome in the preface:
“Lord, Holy Father… in this time of grace, You gather Your children into one family, so that, enlightened by the Word of Life, they may joyfully celebrate the mystery of Your Son crucified and risen. He is salvation, ever invoked and awaited, who calls us to His table, heals the wounds of body and spirit, and to the afflicted gives joy. Through all of these signs of Your favor, we are reborn with living faith to a more certain hope, and we offer ourselves to our brothers and sisters in loving service, as we await the return of the Lord.”
May new hope fill each of your hearts in this Year of Jubilee.
[Featured image: Pope Francis crosses the threshold of the Holy Door of the Church of Our Father at Rome’s Rebibbia prison on Dec. 26 before presiding over a Mass with inmates, prison staff, and Italian government officials. The Holy Father opened the Holy Door to usher in the Jubilee Year. Catholic News Service photo/Vatican Media]