The Holy Year of Jubilee: Origins, History, and What it Means Today
On Christmas Eve, 2024, the Holy Father, Pope Francis, will open the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica, marking the beginning of the 2025 Holy Year of Jubilee, which will last until the Feast of Epiphany on January 6th, 2026. The Jubilee is a holy season in Catholic life when the infinite mercy of God and His Church are brought to the fore through the remission of sin and the granting of plenary indulgences to those who make a special pilgrimage to Rome. Many might fondly recall Pope Francis’ Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015, or even Pope Saint John Paul II’s Great Jubilee of 2000. But what is the Jubilee, and what are its origins? A better understanding of this ancient tradition will better equip us to treat the impending celebration with the solemnity and piety it deserves.
The term ‘jubilee’ is derived from the Hebrew יובל (yobel), referring to the horn of a ram. This is because, in ancient Israel, the season was declared by a blast from the shofar, an instrument made from the ram’s horn. It first appears in Leviticus 25:8-13, described as a time in which all slaves are to be freed and every debt forgiven:
And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee. Every man shall return to his possession, and every one shall go back to his former family: because it is the jubilee and the fiftieth year.
The Jubilee, as celebrated today, builds on this premise, stemming back to the later Middle Ages. The first Jubilee as we know it today was declared in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII, in which he granted a plenary indulgence—the remission of the temporal punishment merited by our sins, even after they have been forgiven—to those who made a pilgrimage to Rome and visited the Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul. Similar Jubilee celebrations have been held at least every fifty years since, with plenary indulgences granted to those who make a good confession and take communion at the four Papal Basilicas: St. John Lateran, St. Peter’s, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major.
To celebrate the Holy Year of Jubilee, then, with a pilgrimage to Rome is to participate in a vital aspect of Catholic life, and to take advantage of an extraordinary opportunity to experience firsthand the breadth of God’s extraordinary mercy. It is a great spiritual gift, moreover, to walk the streets of Rome, to venerate the relics of Christ’s Saints, and to enter into communion with the universal church in the city that she calls home. If there were ever a time to take the plunge and go on a pilgrimage, the 2025 Holy Year of Jubilee is the time to do it.