Jubilee 2025: Pilgrims of Hope

In a few short weeks, 2024 will come to an end. Our well-planned Christmas celebrations will bleed into our anticipation of a new year, which offers a new beginning. But, 2025 won’t be just any new year. This new year is a Jubilee year! 

In keeping with the venerable tradition dating back to 1300, Pope Francis has announced 2025 as a Jubilee year. It comes 10 years after the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy and 25 years after the great Jubilee of the year 2000, commemorating 2,000 years since the birth of Christ. 

The tradition of a Jubilee year, rooted in Scripture (cf. Leviticus 25), always has been a time for restoration, reconciliation and renewal. It is a call to return to God with all our hearts and to embrace His infinite mercy. The 2025 Jubilee is no different. It reminds us that in Christ, all things are made new (cf. Revelation 21:5).

In this Jubilee year, Pope Francis invites us to be “Pilgrims of Hope.” 

Saint Paul is the consummate model of Christian hope. The great apostle never loses hope despite unimaginable trials, dangers and obstacles that could have prevented him from fulfilling his great mission to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. 

In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul writes: “We boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God. … Hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:2,5). I echo Pope Francis in encouraging each one of the faithful to this same unwavering hope.

Hope is an indispensable virtue for us today, just as it was for Saint Paul. In a world burdened by division, suffering and the challenges of post-pandemic recovery, this Jubilee comes as a gift, and a call. It beckons us to lay aside the burdens that hinder us and to walk together as a people of hope. This hope is for every person. 

Pope Francis expresses his desire for an abundant outpouring of this supernatural gift of hope through the celebration of the Jubilee year especially upon married couples, prisoners, the sick, the youth, migrants, the elderly and the poor. 

In the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, I see this hope lived out as we continue to live and celebrate our Catholic faith, which is marked by steadfastness in the face of adversity. Blessed Stanley Rother embodies the hope to which we are called. Despite political unrest and threats of violence, he clung to the anchor of his hope in the power of Christ to conquer injustice.

The Holy Father has asked each bishop to celebrate the opening of the Jubilee year on Dec. 29, the Feast of the Holy Family. Therefore, I invite all the faithful to join me at The Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 29 for the solemn rite of the opening of the Jubilee year! 

As a local church, we will process together into the cathedral with the cross of Jesus Christ. In our mother church, we will celebrate the Eucharist, the summit of our hope.

Every Jubilee year offers an opportunity to make a pilgrimage. Pope Francis is inviting us to the Holy Doors in Rome. These special doors at each of the four major basilicas of Rome are a sign of God's mercy and a physical symbol of our entrance into a new relationship with him through baptism.

Though no Holy Doors will be opened outside of Rome, the Holy Father has permitted bishops to designate sacred places as Jubilee sites. These sites serve as local pilgrimage destinations. I invite you to visit the following Jubilee sites in our archdiocese during the Jubilee year: The Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Oklahoma City), Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine (Oklahoma City), Saint Gregory’s Abbey (Shawnee), Holy Trinity Catholic Church (Okarche), the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima (Bison), and the National Shrine of the Infant Jesus of Prague (Prague).

Every Jubilee year affords the faithful the opportunity of gaining an extraordinary indulgence. Pope Francis describes an indulgence as “a way of discovering the unlimited nature of God’s mercy. Not by chance, for the ancients, the terms ‘mercy’ and ‘indulgence’ were interchangeable as expressions of the fullness of God’s forgiveness, which knows no bounds” (Spes non Confundit, 23). 

By walking through the Holy Doors in Rome, making a pilgrimage to attend Mass at a Jubilee site or praying at a Jubilee site anywhere in the world, you may receive a plenary indulgence provided you fulfill the usual norms. Furthermore, works of mercy and penance are occasions for the faithful to obtain a plenary indulgence in this Jubilee year.

I invite you to begin this Jubilee year with an openness to God’s grace. He wants us to see the signs of hope that inspire us along our pilgrimage through life. This supernatural virtue of hope decidedly anchors us to the foundation of the cross amidst the storms of life and brings us safely into the harbor of his eternal Kingdom. 

Let us walk together as “Pilgrims of Hope” as we celebrate this Jubilee year!


Find more information about the Jubilee at:
Jubilee Year 2025​
usccb.org/jubilee2025