The Hope in the Jubilee Year 2025

The Jubilee Year 2025, a profoundly significant event in the Catholic calendar, commenced on December 24th, 2024.

The Jubilee Year 2025, a profoundly significant event in the Catholic calendar, commenced on December 24th, 2024. It marks a unique and profound spiritual journey for all Catholic believers, akin to a pilgrimage. This spiritual significance, deeply rooted in the Jubilee Year tradition, is a time of personal growth, renewal, and grace. Many will prepare for a long journey to the Vatican, a testament to their unwavering devotion to God. The Jubilee Year is traditionally celebrated every 100 years, but it was later changed to every 50 years and eventually to every 25 years. This adjustment, made by Pope Paul II in 1470, ensured that the Jubilee Year occurs more frequently, allowing more generations to experience its spiritual benefits.

St. Peter’s Basilica opened a holy door, a symbol of spiritual passage and renewal, which will bring hope to all Christians. Traditionally sealed and only opened during Jubilee Years, this door represents a passage from sin to grace, life to death. It is a powerful symbol of the Jubilee Year’s spiritual journey. How we treat our faith, social living, and the environment determines this hope. Sometimes, lasting hope always takes someone on a long journey to achieve. The Encyclical of the Papacy always instructs Catholic believers to strengthen their faith without despair. Replacing the feuding traits with the fortitude of faith without compromise to benighted influence marks the strength of the doctrine of the Pope’s supreme power to tame the destructive people’s minds. Through the holy door, this year’s Jubilee will improve the quality of global life construction.

The Vatican, under the leadership of the Supreme Pontiff, has been actively involved with the global community through diplomatic relations. It plays a significant role in addressing many global issues, including providing hope and guidance. The Jubilee Year, focusing on hope and renewal, is particularly significant in this context. Its involvement in these issues serves to narrow the boundaries and gaps, even though some internal cases, such as sexual abuse cases, have affected the public’s perspective on the Holy See’s doctrine. However, these efforts become a call to action, a determination not to let public opinion lambast the Catholic Supreme Pontiff, who was always deemed as the embodiment of the Catholic church’s hypocrisy. Therefore, from the ‘no boundaries perspective,’ Catholic missionaries and the Supreme Pontiff, as the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, will get closer to their service missionary. John the Baptist, known as the great prophet of hope, will lead those missionaries to muse about what they have done in their service and people to call for repentance. 

‘Hope’ is the central theme of the Jubilee Year. The ‘greater hope’ symbolized by the Jubilee Year is not just a wish for personal success but a collective aspiration for a world free from poverty, injustice, and suffering. This ‘greater hope’ is a vision of a world where all people, regardless of their circumstances, can live in dignity and peace. After reflecting on a year of forgiveness and God’s mercy in the Jubilee Year of 2000, the Vatican, as a central figure in the Catholic Church, asks people to join to reach this ‘greater hope.’ The world still struggles to handle the complexity of problems. From global poverty matters to social justice in relatively law treatment, it has become the reality of people’s hope to be solved.

In addition to sending a prayer to seek the blessing of God and wishing hope will be granted, the ‘Hope’ proposed by the Vatican’s Jubilee Year must be realized through the quality of how people negotiate with their surroundings. In this matter, Catholic believers must represent themselves as the carriers of God’s revelation for the kindness of living things. Their performance is intended for the embodiment of hope-to-achievement. Catholic believers are not alone in this mission because they are part of the global community. People realize that achieving people’s hopes will require facing simple or complex obstacles. However, the encyclical Catholic Church always stands as a beacon of encouragement, guiding all to face these hurdles, knowing Christians are part of a larger mission.

The Jubilee Year of 2025 will also become the year of regeneration because Pope Francis has firmly but gently communicated his preaching and policy to the public. His statements emphasize the importance of unfaltering faith in the Catholic teachings, mind, and behavior. The Supreme Pontiff, aware of the increasing world population and the complex issues it brings, such as regional conflict, migration, unbalanced income distribution, and environmental degradation, has inspired hope and optimism in people, urging them to strive for a better future.

Migration and regional conflict have been the most pressing issues in recent years. The Lampedusa tragedy, which unfolded on October 3rd, 2013, became a significant humanitarian case that drew attention from the Vatican authority. This tragic event, which took place off the coast of Lampedusa, a Sicilian island closer to Africa than Italy’s mainland, is a stark reminder of the fragility of human hope. It is a poignant example of the challenges the Catholic Church strives to address during the Jubilee Year. Five hundred forty-three individuals, driven by the hope for a better life in Europe, were forced to abandon their dreams in the face of unbearable pain. Among them, 368 lost their lives, 155 survived, and 20 remain missing.

The Lampedusa tragedy has become a dark stain on the chronicle of human rights. In this tragedy, immigrants were confronted with the harsh reality that their hopes were dashed in an instant. However, we cannot simply resign ourselves to what some might call ‘God’s will.’. This story, particularly in the context of the Jubilee Year, must be retold to prevent a recurrence. Every human being deserves the chance to realize their hopes, and it is our collective responsibility to ensure this. 

In the next Jubilee Year, which will take place 25 years from now, the role of the Vatican’s missionaries and the Supreme Pontiff will undoubtedly evolve. The Vatican’s missionaries, who are dedicated to spreading the message of hope and renewal, will continue to play a crucial role in guiding the faithful and addressing global issues. As the journey and global issues change, these transformations will shape the direction of the Supreme Pontiff’s stance when the Jubilee Year takes effect in the Catholic family worldwide. The Vatican’s missionaries and the Supreme Pontiff will continue to embody the hope of people’s desires and inspire others to join in the pursuit of a better world.

Rostamaji Korniawan
Rostamaji Korniawan
The author holds a Postgraduate degree from Pukyong National University, South Korea (majoring in International and Area Studies) and the School of Strategic and Global Studies, University of Indonesia (European Studies).