Pope proclaims Jubilee: ‘May hope fill our days!’

“Hope” is the overarching theme of the upcoming Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, a theme reflected in the opening words of the Bull of Indiction, entitled “Spes non confundit. Hope does not disappoint.”

Long passages of the Bull were read out ahead of Vespers on Ascension Thursday, during a ceremony in which the document was solemnly consigned to the Archpriests of the four Papal Basilicas, the Pro-Prefects of the Dicastery for Evangelization, and representatives of the world’s Bishops.

Complete Bull

Solemn opening of the Holy Doors

In Spes non confundit, Pope Francis announces that the Jubilee Year will begin with the opening of the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve, 2024.

Later, on 29 December, the Pope will open the Holy Door of the Archbasilica of St John Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome. On the same day, every Cathedral and co-Cathedral throughout the world will have Mass celebrated by the local Bishop to mark the opening of the Jubilee.

On the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, 1 January 2025, Pope Francis will open the Holy Door for the Basilica of St Mary Major, with the Holy Door for the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls being opened on Sunday, 5 January, the Vigil of Epiphany.

“In the course of the year,” Pope Francis writes, “every effort should be made to enable the People of God to participate fully in its proclamation of hope in God’s grace and in the signs that attest to their efficacy.”

The Jubilee will end in the particular Churches throughout the world on 28 December 2025, with the Holy Doors of St John Lateran, St Mary Major, and St Paul’s Outside the Walls being closed on that same date.

And finally, the Jubilee Year will draw to a close in Rome on the Solemnity of Epiphany, 6 January 2026.

An opportunity to be renewed in hope

“Everyone knows what it is to hope,” the Pope wrote in the introduction to the Bull. “In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future will bring.”

Expressing his desire that the Jubilee might be “an opportunity for us to be renewed in hope, Pope Francis recalled that pilgrimage is “a fundamental event of every Jubilee event,” traditionally associated with the human quest for the meaning of life. The artistic masterpieces and the beauty of creation we see on our journey inspire us to praise and thank God for His wondrous works.

The Service of the Missionaries of Mercy Continues

The Pontiff announces that the Missionaries of Mercy, instituted during the last Extraordinary Jubilee, continue to carry out their “important mission” and invites the bishops to send them to places where “hope is severely tested”, such as prisons and hospitals, or where “the dignity of the person is trampled upon”, “in the most precarious situations and in the most degraded contexts”.

Prayer at Marian shrines

The Holy Father invites all “pilgrims who come to Rome” to pray at the city’s Marian shrines to invoke Mary’s protection, so as to “experience the closeness of the most affectionate of mothers, who never abandons her children”. (24)

There are two Schoenstatt shrines in the Eternal City: Cor Ecclesiae and Matri Ecclesiae.

Check out the addresses and contact details here:

– Cor Ecclesiae Shrine
Via Aurelia Antica, 12, 00165 Rome
Tel. +39 0639378780

– Matri Ecclesiae Shrine (Belmonte)
Via di Santa Gemma 17, 00116 Rome
E-mail: mail@roma-belmonte.info
Website: roma-belmonte.info/en

With information from: vaticannews.va/en