Jubilee Year answered a need for hope

By Jacob Plante - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | As the Te Deum triumphantly rang out in St. Mary Cathedral on Saturday, Dec. 27, the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope in the Archdiocese of Miami came to a close. Archbishop Thomas Wenski celebrated the Solemn Pontifical Mass, which was attended by clergy, religious, and the faithful from throughout the archdiocese, each with a personal connection to the Jubilee and its theme, “Pilgrims of Hope.”

The closing of the Holy Door by Pope Leo at St. Peter's Basilica on Jan. 6, 2026, the Feast of the Epiphany, will officially mark the end of the global Jubilee Year. “But in all the dioceses outside of Rome, the Jubilee concludes on this weekend’s feast of the Holy Family,” explained Archbishop Wenski during his homily.

Jubilee Year 2025 commemorated the 2,025th anniversary of the Incarnation and the birth of Christ. It began Dec. 24, 2024, when Pope Francis opened the special Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. That door will remain closed until the next Jubilee.

During the Jubilee Year, the Church called on the faithful to visit designated holy sites, confess sins, obtain plenary indulgences, and model Jesus’ presence to the world. Millions of Catholics around the world went on pilgrimages, either to Rome or to designated sites in their local dioceses.

Bishops around the world designated their cathedrals, parishes and shrines within their respective dioceses as places of pilgrimage throughout the year, where pilgrims could go to receive a special Jubilee indulgence and attend events centered around faith and devotion.

“A ‘pilgrimage’ is a way of reminding us of this: We journey to holy sites as a way to remind ourselves that life is a journey whose destination is God in the Kingdom of Heaven, where our hope in Jesus Christ will be vindicated,” said Archbishop Wenski.

In the Archdiocese of Miami, St. Mary Cathedral itself was one of six special Jubilee pilgrimage sites, along with the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Coconut Grove, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Doral, the Shrine of Our Lady of Schoenstatt in Homestead, the Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea in Key West and St. Clement Church in Wilton Manors.

Archbishop Wenski thanked the parishes and shrines in the archdiocese that welcomed hundreds of pilgrims throughout the past year.

Jose Viviana, president of the Miami section of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, attended the Mass with his order. He stated that he was “very moved by the Mass,” and added, “I believe that not by coincidence, but by the grace of God, this Mass was on the celebration date of the Holy Family during the Christmas Octave.” Viviana said that modern families should meditate on the example of the Holy Family and their acceptance of God’s will during the Christmas season.

He added that the Jubilee’s message of “grace, forgiveness and renewal” is especially relevant to our current time and is “much needed in the families of the present world challenged by the ideologies of secularism, political polarization, constant busyness and media distractions.”

Archbishop Wenski addressed the ideological challenges of the modern day and stressed the need for hope, saying that the Jubilee “could not have come soon enough.”

He observed that “Perhaps because of the ascendant secularism of our times, perhaps because of the mediocre witness or even counter-witness of too many Christians, many people today have lost hope – or perhaps they never had it in the first place. For many, politics has become a ‘replacement religion,’ and it attempts, unsuccessfully, to fill a void for belonging, moral clarity and meaning that once was the role of religion in society.”

He posited that today’s “woke ideologies” are poor substitutes for religion and sources of “false hope that will ultimately disappoint their adherents, as the last century’s false religions of Marxism and Fascism disappointed theirs.” He continued, “A world without God is a world without hope; without hope, there is no future. When the Word became flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary, hope was born – for Jesus, who came into the world to save it, is the hope of the world.”

He also noted the increasing interest in faith and religion, particularly among youth, which has coincided with the Jubilee Year, and said that disillusionment with secularism has led people to search for hope, finding spiritual renewal in the Church’s sacramental life and the Holy Eucharist.

Archbishop Wenski said, “Through the Jubilee Indulgence, the Lord has caused a river of grace and blessing to flow. He has granted to us all His hope and His peace. He has strengthened the weak hands. He has made firm the feeble knees. He has said to each one of us, ‘Take courage; do not be afraid.’”

Ivonne Stoner, a parishioner of St. Bonaventure Parish in Davie, said the Jubilee Year and its timing have been a source of consolation for her. Wearing a T-shirt with the Jubilee of Hope logo, she tearfully described its deep personal impact on her life. “My father just passed away, so offering this Mass for him has been very special,” she said.

Stoner said that at the beginning of the Jubilee, she visited her father abroad and she thought, “‘This is a good year to die,’ because of the Jubilee of Hope, indulgences. He went home. Pope Francis went home. We made it to Easter, and then my father went. So the Jubilee is very special.”

She expressed sadness at the Jubilee’s end but said she trusts that “it's being sent into mission. We cannot stay on the mountain; we need to be sent into mission.”

Ordinary Jubilee years are held every 25 years. Extraordinary Jubilees are occasionally proclaimed in between, such as the Jubilee of Mercy in 2016 proclaimed by Pope Francis.