JUBILEE YEAR 2025
2025 is a Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church because it marks the 2,025th anniversary of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. The theme for the year is “Pilgrims of Hope”.
Leaning into the sacraments, making a pilgrimage, and seeking indulgences can change your spiritual life in the 2025 Jubilee Year.
1) The Jubilee Year Offers a Spiritual “Reset”
“In Leviticus 25, we find Moses setting up a year on a 50-year cycle where all debts are canceled, all property goes back to the original owner, and all Israelite servants are set free,” Bergsma teaches.
This theme of freedom and renewal was fulfilled in Christ, who proclaimed “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19). In 2025, the Church offers us this chance to spiritually “reset” and refocus on God’s mercy.
2) You Can Participate Fully—Even Without Traveling to Rome
The Church makes sure that the graces of the Jubilee are available to all, even if you can’t go to Rome.
“If you spiritually accompany a group—praying for them every day, keeping up with them—you can gain the same indulgence,” Bergsma explains.
Some dioceses may even have designated special pilgrimage sites where you can pass through a Holy Door.
3) Indulgences Can Help Free the Effects of Sin
By walking through a Holy Door, making a pilgrimage, or even praying for those on pilgrimage, we can draw closer to Christ and extend His mercy to others.
“The Jubilee year is a holy year where more graces and more forgiveness is made available by the Church to encourage us to seek conversion for ourselves and everybody that we love,” Bergsma says. Catholics can receive two indulgences daily—one for themselves and one for a soul in purgatory.
“May the grace of the Jubilee year reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.”
