Pope Francis announced the 2025 Jubilee year as a year of Hope.
Hope sounds good to me. It feels as if, lately, our communities have spent an extraordinary amount of time focused on fear. This Jubilee year feels like the perfect time to shift away from the fear of the unknown and into the hope of Jesus.
I find it fascinating that God understood humanity so completely that he wrote the idea of Jubilee years into Leviticus. Even after Jesus came and taught us about forgiveness and hospitality and love, the Church struggled to follow those primary teachings. God knew that his people would need a little extra help, so he built in a forgiveness plan.
Interestingly, the Church didn’t think to formally adopt this forgiveness plan until the people acted. Even though Pope Boniface VII is given credit for the first Jubilee in the Church, it was not his idea. Instead, the faithful knew in their hearts that they needed some holy intervention, so they made a pilgrimage to Rome. The Pope noticed the influx of faithful and, admiring their tenacity, proclaimed 1300 the first official Jubilee year in the Catholic Church.
The people acted. The Pope affirmed. And the year of Jubilee began.
Once again, as often happens in our Church’s history, the community drove the faith practice of the Church. Yet one more reminder that Catholicism is not a top-down institutional organization, but one rooted in its people, blossoming when the faithful act.
I believe it’s time to act again. As frustrating as our Church can be on some issues, the origins of the Jubilee year are a reminder that we, the people of the Church, can make a lasting difference. It may not be as easy as showing up on the Pope’s doorstep, but Pope Francis’s Hopeful decree also gives me Hope.
Leviticus talks of returning to our property in a Jubilee year and I’m wondering if our modern call is to return to our Churches, not to be forgiven, but to forgive. Our Church needs a resurgence of Hope and those of us who have been harmed are the ones who can potentially offer that hope. We know what it takes to stand up for good, to defend the ostracized, and to ally with the rejected. The Church needs us.
Even though the Church needs all of us, for some, this Jubilee year may not be their year to return. Nobody, especially not me, is asking for the people the Church has rejected to revisit that harm. But they can offer their forgiveness from afar.
For others, this forgiveness can happen within the pews.
In recent years, I’ve missed belonging to a faith community that believes in its people. For me, the value of an institutional faith remains. We need one another in this world. We need a place to gather and get to know one another. Faith seeks understanding and understanding is the best way to cast out fear. The origins of the early Church are rooted in a people gathering together so they could live out God’s love.
Maybe this Jubilee year of Hope is a call to return to those early church communities who trusted Jesus so much that eschewed fear to live completely in God’s love.
god forever tries 
I’ve never regretted moving home after the upheaval at SJB. I value our time in AZ but I don’t miss it . I miss a few friends though. I do think that our friendship was one that never really had a chance to grow. And after reading your blog and instagram posts over the last few years, I regret that oversight. I feel like our thoughts on faith and religion are so in sync. Thanks for sharing! And Happy New Year!
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This is a really lovely post, and I’m grateful that you wrote it. My heart has felt lighter ever since I became aware that this will be a Jubilee year. I’m clinging to this, and truly anticipating returning (making a pilgrimage) to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. I’m been in exile from it for 22 years — enough is enough! The Hope, the value of community, the need to return to one’s roots — it’s all so potent and alive. I am not dreading 2025 quite so much thanks to the Jubilee.
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I do miss the community of church. I am so grateful for the faith community that surrounded me as I raised my children. Divorce, covid, and the current election cycle have taken a toll on my church attendance and my faith. I spent so much of my life not questioning, that I now feel betrayed as my lens has changed; it is hard to see past the patriarchy…and so I wrestle with God on my own. Thank you for your words and sharing your thoughts!
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