Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19; see also Isa 61:1-2). With these words from the prophet Isaiah, Jesus inaugurates his public ministry as a sacred time, “a year acceptable to the Lord.” As Catholics, we sanctify time at the sacred liturgy when the people of God gather to worship. In the liturgy, sacred time can even transcend the limits of space: If you cannot peer into the empty tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, you can still observe the light of Christ shining in the dark as the paschal candle is lit at the Easter Vigil, and you can hear the good news “He is not here, but he has been raised” (Luke 24:6) when the Gospel is proclaimed.
In a few weeks, the universal Church will experience the beginning of a sacred time when Pope Francis opens the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and ushers in the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025. Since 1300, jubilee celebrations have marked not only the passing of years and centuries but have also served as holy times in human history when we pause, pray, seek the Lord’s pardon, and praise him for his merciful grace. The jubilee year has its roots in the Old Testament when God instructed the children of Israel through Moses to count every fiftieth year as sacred (Lev 25:10). The biblical jubilee year was a sacred time in which the Israelites, freed from slavery, would proclaim liberty to captives and forgiveness to debtors; people returned to family and homeland as a way of recalling that the simplest bonds in life are often the most essential; and people renewed their trust in God by letting the land lay fallow and relying solely on what God provided (see Lev 25:11-13; 20-22).
The theme for the Jubilee Year 2025 is “Pilgrims of Hope.” We pray in Eucharistic Prayer III that God will “confirm in faith and charity your pilgrim Church on earth.” Faith gives us already in this age a foretaste of the clear vision of God that awaits us in eternity. Charity lets us live the life of heaven even here on earth. Hope, by which we desire heaven and trust in God’s promise of eternal life, makes us a pilgrim church journeying in confidence toward our true home. Hope allows us to “keep our eyes fixed on Jesus” (Heb 12:2). The Scriptures envision hope as “an anchor for our soul” (Heb 6:19) by which we “hold fast” to the promise of eternal life “that lies before us” (Heb 6:18). In choosing the theme of hope for the jubilee year, Pope Francis reminds the Church in the words of St. Paul that “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts” (Rom 5:5).
The idea of a Church on pilgrimage is essential to the spirit of the jubilee year. By making our way through the busy world, pilgrim journeys help us to appreciate the beauty of creation, recall the need for silence and recollection, form friendships with fellow travelers, and seek Christ, who is the way (John 14:6) and the gateway (John 10:9) to eternal life, in every encounter and situation. Unlike other jubilee celebrations in the past, the only Holy Doors to pass through are the ones that the Holy Father will open in Rome. However, in the Archdiocese of Detroit, throughout the coming Jubilee Year 2025, certain churches will serve as official sites of pilgrimage for the faithful in Southeast Michigan to visit. At these archdiocesan pilgrimage sites, the faithful will be able to pray the official prayer for Jubilee
Year 2025 and unite themselves spiritually to all who will journey as pilgrims to Rome physically. Of course, if anyone from Detroit has travel plans to be in Rome during the jubilee year, you should make a visit to one of Rome’s four major basilicas part of your itinerary.
Even without a Holy Door to pass through here in Detroit, I would offer a word of encouragement to the faithful in the archdiocese to seek out a certain door in your parish church that can be a threshold for new hope. That particular door is, of course, the door to the confessional. As pilgrims of hope in this coming jubilee year, I pray that all Catholics will find hope by going or returning to the sacrament of penance. Confession is one of the greatest acts of hope a Catholic can make! It is entrusting yourself fully to God’s divine mercy. God is always ready to forgive: Ask, seek, knock, and the door of his mercy will be opened to you (see Matt 7:7-8; Luke 11:9-10)! As I wrote in Unleash the Gospel, “[r]econciliation is an open doorway for return. No sin is unforgiveable, and through the sacrament the Father’s embrace and a fresh start await” you. One place where Christian hope can guide us in this jubilee year is toward renewed trust and confidence in God’s mercy in the sacrament of reconciliation.
An important aspect of the jubilee celebrations that is related to sacramental confession is the granting of indulgences. Because sin is a preference for self-love, it leaves behind an unhealthy attachment to (or a disordered love for) earthly things, even after it is forgiven. The Catechism teaches that these earthly attachments can be purified either here on earth or after death in Purgatory. God’s abundant mercy is such that he wants to reorder our disordered desires even now. Thus, an indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment (the effects of sin that linger in us) caused by sin. An indulgence frees us from earthly attachments by means of heavenly remedies, such as prayers, pilgrimages, devotions, and works of mercy. During the Jubilee Year 2025, the faithful can obtain a plenary indulgence, that is, complete remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, by making a pilgrimage to one of the jubilee sites designated throughout the archdiocese. In addition to making the visit, the normal conditions for obtaining a plenary indulgence apply: having detachment from all sin, even venial sins; confessing sins in sacramental confession; receiving the Holy Eucharist; and praying for the intentions of the Holy Father (usually with an Our Father and Hail, Mary). Confession, reception of the Eucharist, and prayers for the Pope can (but do not need to) take place at the pilgrimage site; they can happen elsewhere within a reasonable time (about 20 days) before or after your visit. By other works of mercy and penance performed throughout the jubilee year Catholics can obtain the plenary indulgence.
The focus on penance and indulgences throughout the year should help the faithful to understand the communal nature of our jubilee celebrations: penance and indulgences heal the wounds of sin that affect all God’s people; reception of the Holy Eucharist brings us into communion with God and one another, forming us into the Body of Christ; even prayers said in Detroit for the Holy Father in Rome unite us spiritually to him and to the pilgrim Church throughout the world. As we keep this sacred time of jubilee in the Archdiocese of Detroit, we have yet another opportunity to act on the foundational conviction of Synod ’16: to obey the Holy Spirit and be made by him a band of joyful missionary disciples. Obeying the Holy Spirit could mean that those who have been away from the sacrament of penance would allow the Spirit, who knocks on the door of the heart, to lead them to the door of the confessional; being joyful missionary disciples might mean that we share the good news of a “year acceptable to the Lord” with others, especially those who are hungry, sick, poor, imprisoned, homebound, and lonely, by inviting them to journey with us, either physically or spiritually, as pilgrims of hope. By God’s providence, the Jubilee Year 2025 coincides with the year of Eucharistic revival in the United States
that is focused on mission. This coming year we might ask: How can we bring the good news of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist to those who hunger for him and to those who live without hope?
As we approach the beginning of this sacred time, I recall the example of Blessed Solanus Casey, the porter of St. Bonaventure monastery, who simply opened the door to so many who sought God’s mercy with humility and hope. Inspired by Blessed Solanus, I “thank God ahead of time” for the mercy that the Lord will extend, for the hope that this new year will foster, and for the joy this jubilee year will bring.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
The Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron
Archbishop of Detroit