News & Events

2025 Jubilee Year of Hope

Every twenty-five years, Holy Mother Church celebrates a Jubilee Year.

This is a moment of great significance in the life of the Church. Every Jubilee involves sacramental celebrations, pilgrimages, and a heavy emphasis on sacramental reconciliation.

The 2025 Jubilee will begin in the Diocese of Gallup on Holy Family Sunday, 29 December 2024, and will conclude on Holy Family Sunday, 28 December 2025. Pope Francis has declared the theme of this Jubilee to be “Pilgrims of Hope.” This will be the focus of our celebrations.

Throughout every Jubilee, the Jubilee indulgence is of great importance. The Catechism teaches us:

“[a]n 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” (CCC, 1471).

In addition to the regular ways of gaining indulgences, there are a number of ways to gain the particular Jubilee Indulgence in the upcoming year. Each of these also requires:

Sacramental confession 20 days before or after the indulgenced activity (one confession can count for many indulgences)
Reception of Holy Communion
Prayers for the intentions of the Pope (an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Creed will suffice)
and total detachment from all sin

To gain a Jubilee Indulgence, perform the above actions, plus one or more of the following:

Make a pilgrimage to a Jubilee site to participate in Mass or another liturgical or prayer service. Note that at each of these sites there should be holy cards available particular to each place to help commemorate your pilgrimages
Make a pious visit to Jubilee sites to engage in Adoration or meditation (those unable to do so for reasons of age or health may unite themselves spiritually to those pilgrims going to the sites)
Perform works of Mercy and Penance. This can include attending missions or spiritual exercises, formational events, and the performance of corporal or spiritual works of mercy.

Of note is the fact that, “while a plenary indulgence may normally be obtained only once a day, during the Jubilee a second plenary indulgence can be received on behalf of the souls in Purgatory, by those faithful who carry out an act of charity and receive Holy Communion a second time in the context of the Mass” (USCCB, NewsLetter, May 2024)

As we prepare as pilgrims of hope for this Jubilee, let us remember the words of Pope Francis in his Bull of Indiction for this Jubilee:

Let us even now be drawn to this hope! Through our witness, may hope spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our lives say to them in so many words: Hope in the Lord! Hold firm, take heart and hope in the Lord!” (Ps 27:14). May the power of hope fill our days, as we await with confidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and glory, now and forever (Pope Francis, Spes non confundit, no. 25).