From the desk of the pastor of Jan. 19, 2025

The Lord be with you! On December 24, 2024, Pope Francis inaugurated Jubilee 2025. What is a jubilee though? How will this year of mercy help us get to heaven? Let's find out.

In ancient Israel and throughout the ancient world, the jubilee was an important practice to keep their civilizations running. When a new king came to power or at certain set intervals, all public debts were erased. The economic debts were not usually counted in money but in food. During famines and times of duress, the government would lend out its stores of food to landowners, who would in turn feed their workers and others. These debts would often be impossible to repay, which would in turn cause too much wealth to accumulate in too few pockets outside the government. Accordingly, the jubilee year cancelled those debts so that the ancient economy would stay diversified, i.e. the rich would not become super rich and oppose the government.

Besides monetary debts, punishments and rivalries would also be forgiven. Both the Romans and the Jews would have years of forgiveness when all punishments were commuted so that the community would grow back together. It sees that both the Jews and Romans had jubilees every fifty years - see Leviticus 25:10.

The first time the Church called a jubilee was in 1300 AD under Pope Boniface VIII when thousands of pilgrims had come to Rome. At the Christmas of 1299 AD, many were thanking God for deliverance from the plague and wars. In February 1300 Pope Boniface published the bull "Antiquorum habet fida relatio" which gave the full forgiveness of temporal punishments for sin. Pilgrims had to visit either the basilica of St. Peter or St. Paul and pray for fifteen minutes for 15 days - residents had to do it for 30 days.

But wait, what is temporal punishment? CCC 1472 puts it well:

To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the "eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin.

In our next article we will go over how to obtain the indulgences of this holy year and more generally. For now let us ask ourselves how we understand and participate in forgiveness. Have we always forgiven easily? Have we sought reconciliation humbly and honestly with those we have become estranged with? Jubilee 2025 is about more than a pilgrimage to Rome - it is about making our lives true pilgrimages to Heaven. May we forgive as we have been forgiven.

In His Sacred Heart,

Fr. John