Jubilee Year 2025

Welcome to Our Jubilee Year 2025 Resource Hub!

The Jubilee Year 2025 is a time of renewal, hope, and deepening our faith journey as we embrace the theme, Pilgrims of Hope. To help you make the most of this holy year, we’ve gathered a range of resources to guide and inspire you.

We invite you to journey with us in this sacred celebration, trusting that the Lord will bless this time of grace abundantly.

Jubilee Overview

The Holy Year, also known as a Jubilee, is a special time in the life of the Catholic Church, marked by celebration, renewal, and a call to deeper faith. The Holy Year 2025, under the theme "Pilgrims of Hope," offers an extraordinary opportunity for Roman Catholics and people of goodwill worldwide to embrace hope as a guiding light amid life’s challenges.

  • The concept of a Jubilee year has biblical roots, tracing back to the Old Testament. In Leviticus 25, God instructed the Israelites to observe a year of Jubilee every 50 years, during which debts were forgiven, slaves were freed, and the land was allowed to rest. This was a time of renewal and restoration, emphasizing justice, mercy, and the profound goodness of God.

    In the Catholic tradition, the first Holy Year was proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300, initially meant as a year of pilgrimage to Rome and a time for penance and spiritual renewal. Since then, the Church has celebrated both ordinary and extraordinary Jubilees, each focusing on a particular theme relevant to the needs of the faithful.

  • One of the most distinctive symbols of the Holy Year is the Holy Door, which is opened at the beginning of the Jubilee and sealed at its conclusion. Found in the four major basilicas of Rome—St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls—the Holy Door symbolizes Christ, who proclaimed Himself as the "door" to salvation (John 10:9). Pilgrims passing through the Holy Door undertake a profound act of faith, symbolizing their desire to leave behind sin and enter into a life of grace and renewed hope.              

  •  The theme for the Holy Year 2025, "Pilgrims of Hope," is especially significant in today’s world, where many face uncertainty, division, and suffering. Pope Francis invites all people to see hope not as passive optimism but as an active trust in God’s promises. This Jubilee aims to inspire the faithful to become beacons of hope in their communities, fostering solidarity, compassion, and a renewed commitment to justice and peace.

  • The Jubilee calls believers to embark on a pilgrimage, both physical and spiritual. Traveling to Rome or other designated Holy Sites (including the Cathedral of Christ the King in Hamilton and five other churches in the diocese of Hamilton) becomes an outward expression of an inward journey of conversion. Pilgrims are invited to engage in acts of mercy, seek reconciliation through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and receive a plenary indulgence—a special grace symbolizing God’s abundant mercy.  

  • To fully participate in the Holy Year 2025, the faithful are encouraged to:

    1. Reflect on Scripture: Meditate on God’s promises of hope and renewal.                    

    2. Prayer: Join communal and personal prayers, including a visit to the local church. 

    3. Perform Acts of Mercy: Serve the poor, visit the sick, and forgive those who have wronged you.

    4. Participate in Pilgrimage: Visit Rome, your local cathedral, or other designated Holy Sites.

    5. Celebrate the Sacraments: Particularly the Eucharist and Reconciliation as moments of grace and renewal.

A Year of Grace and Renewal: The Holy Year 2025 invites us to open the doors of our hearts to hope and to encounter Christ anew. By participating in the Jubilee’s spiritual and practical dimensions, we respond to Pope Francis’s call to be "pilgrims of hope," bringing light to a world longing for God’s love and mercy.

The Jubilee Prayer

Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom.

May your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation
of a new heaven and a new earth,
when, with the powers of Evil vanquished,
your glory will shine eternally.

May the grace of the Jubilee
reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope,
a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread
the joy and peace of our Redeemer
throughout the earth.
To you our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever.
Amen.

Click image to take a virtual tour of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Click image to read the letter from Pope Francis on the Jubilee Year

Click image to hear the official hymn of the Jubilee year