Jubilee Year of Hope under way in diocese
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The elaborate “glorias” of “Angels We Have Heard On High” rang out as the people processed from Cana Hall up into the Cathedral of St. Joseph.
It was the fifth day of Christmas, the Feast of the Holy Family and the opening of the Jefferson City diocese’s observance of 2025, the Church-wide Jubilee Year of Hope.
“May Christ, our peace and our hope, be our companion on the journey in this year of grace and consolation,” said Bishop W. Shawn McKnight. “May the Holy Spirit, who today begins this work both in us and with us, bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.”
The Mass included rituals often associated with the Easter Season, such as an outdoor procession and the bishop blessing and sprinkling holy water on everyone present to remind them of their Baptism.
“This rite is for us the prelude to a rich experience of grace and mercy,” said Bishop McKnight. “We are ready always to respond to whoever asks the reason for the hope that is in us — especially in this time of war and disorder.”
“Abound in hope”
Jubilee celebrations in the Church, in modern times held usually every 25 years, harken back to the early history of God’s chosen people.
In keeping with the Law of Moses, the Israelites of antiquity celebrated a jubilee year every 50 years.
They let their fields grow barren for a year, having saved up enough to eat during the previous year.
They celebrated a year of thanksgiving, renewal, liberation of captives and freedom from debt.
Jesus presented himself as the fulfillment of a new jubilee when he told the assembly at the synagogue that words from the Book of Isaiah — “The Spirit of God is upon me, for he has anointed me to announce a year of favor for the Lord and a day of vindication by our God, to comfort all who mourn” — were being fulfilled in their hearing.
The word Jubilee comes from the Hebrew word yobel, a ram’s horn that was used to herald the year of favor.
Pope Boniface VIII called the Catholic Church to celebrate its first holy year in 1300. Since then, holy years have been times for repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, special blessings, prayers, pilgrimages and commitment to Christ.
The start and finish ceremonies — the opening and closing of the holy doors in the major basilicas in Rome — have been in existence since 1500.
Pope Francis called for this year’s Jubilee observance — a quarter-century past the Church’s Great Jubilee 2000 celebration of the beginning of the third millennium of Christianity — to be a “pilgrimage of hope.”
Christians must “abound in hope” to be credible witnesses of God’s love, the pope wrote in a document formally proclaiming the current Holy Year.
He said Christ’s followers can give signs of that hope by having children, welcoming migrants, visiting prisoners, working for peace, opposing the death penalty, helping young people find a job, pressuring rich countries to forgive the debt of poor countries, praying for the souls in purgatory and lobbying to divert money from military spending to food aid.
The pope asked bishops around the world to inaugurate the Holy Year in their dioceses on Dec. 29, 2024, and celebrate the conclusion of the Jubilee locally Dec. 28, 2025.
“Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross,” Pope Francis wrote in the document, titled, “Spes Non Confundit,” (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”).
In a world seemingly marked by war, divisions, environmental destruction and economic challenges, hope can seem hard to come by, the pope stated.
But “Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love,” he said.
“A present reality”
The Cathedral of St. Joseph was dressed in Christmas finery for the diocese’s Opening Mass, with bright sunlight illuminating the stained glass windows.
Congregants processed into the Cathedral behind candles, incense and the simple wooden cross that was fashioned for Jubilee 2000, containing a relic of the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified.
People in the procession carried banners representing the five deaneries, which are geographical groupings of parishes of the diocese.
The Cathedral Choir sang “Pilgrims of Hope,” the official hymn for Jubilee 2025, as the bishop proceeded up and down the aisles, sprinkling holy water on the people.
“Hope does not disappoint!” the bishop proclaimed in his homily, echoing Romans 5:5.
“The foundation of our hope is the Lord Jesus, the door of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all, as ‘our hope,’” said Bishop McKnight.
He said hope is God’s prescribed antidote to a pessimistic attitude about the future.
“Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint,” the bishop noted, “because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may separate us from the love of God.”
Christian hope, founded on faith and nurtured in charity, “enables us to press forward in life, despite our trials,” he said.
“It is not merely an optimistic attitude that things will get better sometime in the future,” he stated. “Christian hope is a present reality that allows us to bear the difficulties of life differently from those without faith.”
And like all hope, it requires patience — something sorely lacking in the current “on-demand” culture in which people often find little time to spend even with their families.
“That is why our Holy Father named this Holy Year ‘Pilgrims of Hope,’” said Bishop McKnight, “accentuating the reality of our need for one another in our pilgrimage together toward an encounter with the Lord.”
Patience is what allows people to be truly present to others and to wait — on God and on one another.
“Patience,” said Bishop McKnight, “one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, sustains our hope and strengthens it as a virtue and a way of life.”
A time to heal
Throughout the world, Catholics will observe the Jubilee Year with special activities aimed at mercy, charity, healing, reconciliation and concretely and actively growing in right relationship with God and people.
Bishop McKnight has designated one Jubilee pilgrimage destination in each of the diocese’s five deaneries.
Prayers, a Jubilee event calendar and other resources for the diocese can be found online at diojeffcity.org/jubilee-year.
Bishop McKnight urged everyone in the diocese to make a special effort throughout the Jubilee Year in three areas:
- Being present to God in prayer: “May our physical pilgrimages throughout this Holy Year manifest externally our desire to be with the Lord, who alone can sustain our hope amidst the stresses, trials and difficulties of our lives.”
- Being more present to one’s own family by exercising the patience needed to do so.
“Perhaps we need to make more of an effort this year to make little personal pilgrimages to visit a sick, lonely,or separated member of the family,” or a fellow parishioner in need of friendship, he said.
“May this holy year be a time of patience that leads to forgiveness, reconciliation and openness that is needed within our families and community,” he stated.
- Becoming tangible signs of hope for people who experience hardships, both material and spiritual.
“May our parishes become true centers of charity and sanctuaries of mercy, as our Lord would desire, by our intentional acts of stewardship to proclaim the kingdom of God in good deeds,” said Bishop McKnight.
