Since Christmas Eve last year until Epiphany of next year, Holy Mother Church has been celebrating the Jubilee Year, or Holy Year. This is a year where the Church pours forth special graces for the spiritual benefit of the faithful. Chief among these graces is the Plenary Indulgence that remits all temporal punishment due to sin. To gain this indulgence, one must detest sin, celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Receive Holy Communion, and pray for the intentions of the Holy Father.

The scriptural root of the Holy Year is contained in the book of Leviticus 25: 8-22. The Jubilee year was to take place every fiftieth year in which all debts were to be forgiven, all families returned to their original properties, and no planting was to be done. These practices were to remind the Israelites that all they were given was God’s gift, not of their own making.

The Church celebrates the Jubilee year every twenty-five years, and many of the faithful make pilgrimages to Rome to visit the Holy Doors in the four main churches: St. Peter, St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran, and St. Mary Major. When the pilgrims visit these basilicas and fulfill the conditions stated above, they gain Plenary Indulgence. Because traveling to Rome is not accessible to everyone, the Church allows various sites in people’s home dioceses to be pilgrimage sites where one can travel to observe the holy Year. To see which sites are available in the Diocese of Cleveland, please consult the website www.dioceseofcleveland.org.

The theme of the Jubilee Year is that of “Pilgrims of Hope” Hope is one of the three Theological Virtues that plants in us the conviction that God will fulfill his promises regarding us. The patriarch Abraham provides a fine example of the virtue of hope. Despite being an elderly man, he believed God’s promised that God would constitute him as the father of many nations.. He held fast to this conviction even when God asked him to offer his only son, Issac as a sacrifice.

The Holy Year is an optimal time to evaluate the strength of our hope. This hope and the conviction that supports it cannot exist simply in our minds. It must also penetrate the depths of our hearts. May our observance of this Jubilee Year of Hope make this a reality in our relationship with God whose love and solicitude for us has no bounds.