The Jubilee Year of 2025

The late Francis, Pope of Rome, declared the Year of 2025 a Jubilee Year with his Papal Bull Spes non Confundit(Hope does not Disappoint). Bishop Kurt has decreed that our Church, Epiphany of Our Lord, is a Church Pilgrimage Site. The Jubilee will end on Theophany of 2026 (January 6), with the closing of the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica. He encouraged all the faithful to embrace our identity as Pilgrims of Hope, here is just an excerpt from the Bull:

By his perennial presence in the life of the pilgrim Church, the Holy Spirit illumines all believers with the light of hope. He keeps that light burning, like an ever-burning lamp, to sustain and invigorate our lives. Christian hope does not deceive or disappoint because it is grounded in the certainty that nothing and no one may ever separate us from God’s love: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or the sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35.37-39). Here we see the reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials: founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life. As Saint Augustine observes: “Whatever our state of life, we cannot live without these three dispositions of the soul, namely, to believe, to hope and to love”.

The whole of the Church, both East and West is invited to embrace the opportunity for spiritual growth that the Jubilee provides, particularly through the Jubilee Indulgence. In our Byzantine Tradition, there is a different approach to Indulgences than in the Roman Rite. We can understand Indulgences as a gift of grace from the Church, and the prayers and actions that are asked of us as an aid in our journey of Theosis. Indulgences are meant to foster in us a greater love of prayer and of neighbor, which is why we are asked to pray and go to Confession, because our relationship with the Lord does not affect only us, but everyone we meet and even the whole Body of Christ. With that being said, the requirements for obtaining an indulgence remain the same for every Catholic, the requirements are:

                    1.  Detachment from all sin

                    2.  Visit a designated pilgrimage site (Epiphany of Our Lord)

                    3.  Mystery of Penance (Confession)

                    4.  Reception of the Holy Mysteries (Eucharist)

                    5.  To pray for the Pope and his intentions (ex Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be)

(N.B. Indulgences can also be offered for departed individuals)

An except from Spes non Confundit directed towards Eastern Christians:

In a particular way, I would like to invite the faithful of the Eastern Churches, particularly those already in full communion with the Successor of Peter, to take part in this pilgrimage. They have suffered greatly, often even unto death, for their fidelity to Christ and the Church, and so they should feel themselves especially welcome in this City of Rome that is also their Mother and cherishes so many memories of their presence. The Catholic Church, enriched by their ancient liturgies and the theology and spirituality of their Fathers, monks and theologians, wants to give symbolic expression to its embrace of them and their Orthodox brothers and sisters in these times when they endure their own Way of the Cross, often forced by violence and instability to leave their homelands, their holy lands, for safer places. For them, the hope born of the knowledge that they are loved by the Church, which does not abandon them but follows them wherever they go, will make the symbolism of the Jubilee all the more powerful.

Link to Papal Bull Spes non Confundit

1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.

What is an indulgence?

“An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.”  “An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.” Indulgences may be applied to the living or the dead.

The punishments of sin

1472 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. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.

1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.”