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In Rome, on the first day of January—the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God—the Holy Door of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major will be opened for the Jubilee Year of 2025. This follows the opening of the Holy Doors in Saint Peter’s and Saint John Lateran over Christmas, and precedes that of the Holy Door at Saint Paul Outside the Walls on 5 January (Anthony Esolen, in his new Holy Places series on page 209, describes the magnificent drama of these portals for us).

Witnesses to Hope

The theme of this Ordinary Jubilee Year is, Pope Francis has declared, Hope does not disappoint (Rm 5:5). It seems particularly fitting that on the first day of the first calendar month of 2025 it is the threshold to our Lady’s basilica that is opened up to the faithful. Mary after all represents the greatest exponent of hope that humanity has ever produced. She it is who abandons herself entirely to the divine will with her “fiat”, and she it is who says at the time of her Son’s first miracle at Cana: Do whatever he tells you. As the Holy Father has written in the Bull in Indiction Spes Non Confundit, “hope finds its supreme witness” in her:

In the Blessed Virgin, we see that hope is not naive optimism but a gift of grace amid the realities of life. Like every mother, whenever Mary looked at her Son, she thought of his future. Surely she kept pondering in her heart the words spoken to her in the Temple by the elderly Simeon: This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too (Lk 2:34-35). At the foot of the cross, she witnessed the Passion and Death of Jesus, her innocent son. Overwhelmed with grief, she nonetheless renewed her “fiat”, never abandoning her hope and trust in God…. In the travail of that sorrow, offered in love, Mary became our Mother, the Mother of Hope. It is not by chance that popular piety continues to invoke the Blessed Virgin as Stella Maris, a title that bespeaks the sure hope that, amid the tempests of this life, the Mother of God comes to our aid, sustains us and encourages us to persevere in hope and trust.

If ever we needed to avail ourselves of hope it is as the shadows of war and conflict advance all over the world. As portrayed by the French poet Charles Péguy (writing during the build-up to the Great War which took his life in 1914), Hope is like a dancing child running ahead of her “elder sisters” Faith and Charity. Just as small children have hope in the world, it is when things are most difficult that we need to hope in our Heavenly Father.

Waiting for the Sabbath

In his essay on the origin of these Jubilee Years on page 249, Father Austin Litke O.P. explains how they relate to the cycle of seven which repeats itself throughout salvation history, beginning with the creation account in Genesis. The seventh day of the week is the sabbath of course. But there is also the ancient tradition of declaring every seventh year a sabbath for the land, allowing time for the earth to rest before growing more crops. These days we are rediscovering the need to respect natural cycles of growth, and we are slowly stepping away from industrialised models of agriculture. It means waiting for the wholesomeness of what the earth produces without resorting to toxic chemicals that harm our health and damage the environment. In his Bull, the Pope speaks about the spiritual importance of this:

Were we still able to contemplate creation with a sense of awe, we might better understand the importance of patience. We could appreciate the changes of the seasons and their harvests, observe the life of animals and their cycles of growth, and enjoy the clarity of vision of Saint Francis. In his Canticle of the Creatures, written exactly eight hundred years ago, Francis saw all creation as a great family and could call the sun his “brother” and the moon his “sister”. A renewed appreciation of the value of patience could only prove beneficial for ourselves and for others. Saint Paul often speaks of patience in the context of our need for perseverance and confident trust in God’s promises. Yet, before all else, he testifies to God’s own patience, as the God of all patience and encouragement (Rm 15:5). Patience, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, sustains our hope and strengthens it as a virtue and a way of life.

A Spiritual Jubilee

Finally, Father Litke explains the origin of the Jubilee itself, a seven-times-seventy-year cycle when, every fiftieth year, a “yodel” was held. “The rest and abundance that characterised the weekly Sabbath was extended to a whole year, but it also included more significant observances: each family was to return to its ancestral land, slaves were to be freed, debts to be forgiven, and exiles to return home.”

The modern way of enacting this might have to be different (not many of us have the privilege of connection to “ancestral land” these days). But the principle is the same, and it is surely this “wiping of the slate” that the Holy Father wishes to encourage at this time. While the earth needs renewal if it is to produce good fruit, our spiritual lives need renewal if we are to become a sign of hope in a world that increasingly founders in despair and disappointment. The Christian life can give reasons for the hope which is anchored in Christ. Those reasons are first and foremost the life of prayer and witness, a life which extends its hands to all who suffer and are heavy-laden.