Letter from the Pastor
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December 22, 2024The world has it all wrong when it comes to the Christmas Season. There is a local radio station that announced on November 1st it is your local Christmas music station. Since the day after Halloween, Christmas music has been playing, 24/7. By the time December 25th arrives, one is so tired of hearing White Christmas, we’re happy to not hear it again until next year.
However, for the rest of us, the Christmas Season begins at midnight, December24th, not ends. Imagine someone arriving for your birthday party 6 weeks ahead and singing Happy Birthday all that time? It makes no sense. So I hope that you don’t fall into the worldly trap of not celebrating Christmas for 12 days AFTER December 25th. Keep the tree up and the nativity scene and enjoy the beautiful Christmas Season until the Epiphany on January 6th.
This year we are celebrating the 2,025th anniversary of Christ’s birth. It is the Jubilee Year of Hope 2025. A jubilee year, also known as a “Holy Year,” is a special year in the life of the Church currently celebrated every 25 years. The last recent ordinary jubilee was in 2000. Pope Francis called for an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015-2016. Jubilee years have been held on regular intervals in the Catholic Church since 1300, but they trace their roots to the Jewish tradition of marking a jubilee year every 50 years.
The jubilee years in Jewish history were “intended to be marked as a time to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation, and involved the forgiveness of debts, the return of misappropriated land, and a fallow period for the fields.”
Jubilee 2025 will open this Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, with the rite of the opening of the Holy Door at
St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican immediately before Pope Francis celebrates midnight Mass. Holy Doors will also be opened at Rome’s three other major basilicas: St. John Lateran on Dec. 29, St. Mary Major on Jan. 1, and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls on Jan. 5. A Holy Door will also be opened Dec. 26 at Rebibbia Prison, a Roman prison Pope Francis has visited twice before to celebrate Mass and wash inmates’ feet on Holy Thursday.
The doors represent the passage to salvation Jesus opened to humanity. In 1423, Pope Martin V opened the Holy Door in the Basilica of St. John Lateran – the Diocese of Rome’s cathedral – for the first time for a jubilee. For the Holy Year of 1500, Pope Alexander VI opened Holy Doors at Rome’s four main basilicas. At the end of a holy year, the Holy Doors are formally closed and then bricked over by masons.
One of the highlights of a jubilee year is the emphasis on the Sacrament of Penance and restoring right relations hips with God. They also provide an opportunity for a special jubilee indulgence, which can remove the residual effects of sin through the grace of Christ.
While many jubilee events will take place in Rome and at the Vatican, it’s a celebration for the whole Church. On Dec. 29th, diocesan bishops are expected to open the Holy Year locally with Masses at their cathedrals and co-cathedrals. Catholics are encouraged to make pilgrimages to their cathedral during the year, and should watch diocesan communications for local events.
The Jubilee Year concludes with the closing of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 6, 2026, on the feast of the Epiphany. However, the Holy Doors at Rome’s other major basilicas will close Dec. 28, 2025; the same day dioceses are to end local celebrations of the Holy Year.
Here in New York, Cardinal Dolan will open the Holy Doors at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday, December 29th. More information will be forthcoming. In the meantime:
Merry Christmas!
