Each week CatholicNews.ie highlights various elements of the upcoming Universal Jubilee 2025 year. To herald the year, on Sunday 29 December, bishops across Ireland will celebrate Mass in their dioceses for the solemn opening of the Holy Year, and thereafter events will be organised locally. In addition, specific jubilee projects will be proposed by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
What is a Jubilee Year
A Jubilee or Holy Year is a special year of forgiveness and reconciliation, in which people are invited to deepen their relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation. The Jubilee 2025 year’s theme is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, and Pope Francis is inviting Catholics to renew our hope and discover a vision that can “restore access to the fruits of the earth to everyone”. We are also invited to rediscover a spirituality of God’s creation in which we understand ourselves as ‘pilgrims on the earth’, rather than masters of the world.
This week CatholicNews.ie reports on five Holy Doors that will be opened in Rome as part of the Jubilee Year celebrations in Rome during 2025.
From a symbolic viewpoint, the Holy Door takes on a special significance as the most powerful sign of the Jubilee, since the ultimate aim of the pilgrim is to pass through it. In crossing the threshold of the Holy Door, the pilgrim is reminded of the passage from chapter ten of Saint John’s gospel, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” Passing through the Holy Door expresses the decision to follow and be guided by Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd.
The Holy Doors of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope will be opened by Pope Francis on Christmas Eve to usher in the beginning of the Jubilee Year worldwide. The first Holy Door will be opened at Saint Peter’s Basilica while the other doors will be located at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, and the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. A fifth door will also be located at a prison, the name of which has not yet been announced.
Bishop Fintan Monahan of Killaloe has been appointed as the designated delegate of the Irish Bishops’ Conference for Jubilee Year 2025.
Reflecting on Holy Doors, Bishop Fintan said, “I have always been drawn to the great imagery that a doorway can evoke, the liminal space of possibility and adventure, entering in and departing, embracing in welcome and saying farewell!”
Bishop Fintan continued, “To help us look forward to the Jubilee/Holy Year 2025, I urge everyone to check out our dedicated countdown timer on catholicbishops.ie as well as details of events to take place at home and in Rome during this special year.”
The History of the Holy Doors
Although Pope Boniface VIII inaugurated the ‘Holy Year’ tradition, called a “Jubilee,” in 1300, it was not until over a century later that the Holy Door played an integral role. According to 15th century documents, in 1423, at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, Pope Martin V opened the Holy Door for the first time in the history of the Jubilee. Holy Years were celebrated every 33 years at that time, in commemoration of the years Jesus lived on earth. Jubilee Years when the Holy Door is opened now occur every 25 years.
The ritual for opening the Holy Door was nearly unchanged between 1525 and 1950. Then slight changes began to appear post-1950: In the early centuries, the Holy Father would strike the brick wall enclosing the Holy Door with a silver hammer; then masons would continue to uncover the door that, at the end of each Holy Year, was sealed again in by a brick wall as the pope closed the year. Then the 1975 Holy Year refocused attention on the door and not the wall. By this time, the Holy Door at Saint Peter’s had been completed with sculpted bronze panels. Later, for the 2000 Jubilee, the Vatican master of papal liturgical celebrations explained these were of “profound biblical, theological, liturgical and pastoral significance attached to the door in salvation history and in the history of the Church; it thus becomes one of the most powerful signs of the Jubilee, as the Pope [John Paul II] pointed out.”
These new elements “better express the biblical and liturgical significance of the Holy Door.” Thus, the panels on the front of the door are visible; but, inside, the back of the door is bricked up until the next Holy Year, when the bricks will be removed, the door pushed open by the Holy Father, and pilgrims again walk through it.
To stay informed about events for this Holy Year that will be taking place, both nationally and internationally, and join in on preparing for this important celebration. For more information on Jubilee 2025, download the app HERE
