Jubilee Year
Jesus stood up to read a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. where it was written:
“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.
Jesus then said to the Jews in the synagogue,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
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2025 has been proclaimed a Jubilee Year by Pope Francis.
This practice of the Jubilee year started with the Jews long before Jesus came. For the Jews 7 is a perfect number as God created the world in seven days. Now 7 times 7 is the most perfect number thus Jesus told Peter to forgive 7 times 7 times. Now after the most perfect number of years, or on the 50th year is the Jubilee year, a joyful year when all debts are forgiven. To signal its start one would blow the “jobel” a trumpet made from ram’s horn.
In today’s gospel Jesus proclaims to the Jews gathered in the synagogue that His arrival as Messiah is a year acceptable to the Lord or indeed a jubilee year when the blind would see again, the poor would be glad, the prisoners would finally be set free.
The catholic church has adapted the jubilee every fifty years or whenever the pope would declare it. Pope Francis has opened the Holy Door at Vatican last December 24 to start the Jubilee. Anyone who enters this door or the holy door in any designated pilgrim church in the world, goes to confess, receives Holy Communion and prays for the pope’s intention would receive a plenary indulgence or would go straight to heaven without passing the fires of purgatory.
Now the pope has declared his three intentions for 2025. First, that all wars in the world would cease. Second, that debts of poorer countries to richer countries would be cancelled. Third, that the youth be assisted to give hope to the world. Thus, the Jubilee Theme is: Pilgrims of Hope.
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