What is a Jubilee?

A Jubilee is a special year of grace and conversion, involving prayer, pilgrimage and sacramental repentance, held every 25 years, or during other years as called for by the Pope.

The most recent (ordinary) Jubilee celebrated was the Great Jubilee of 2000. The most recent Extraordinary Jubilee Year was 2015, the Holy Year of Mercy.

Jubilee celebration has biblical roots, and therefore it presents us with a wonderful opportunity to deepen our appreciation of those roots.

Through a series of concrete rituals, acts and commitments, the goal of a Jubilee year is to inspire and encourage holiness of life among the faithful and therefore to strengthen the Church’s witness to God’s loving mercy in and for the world.

Theme for Jubilee 2025

The theme for the 2025 Jubilee, chosen by Pope Francis, is “Pilgrims of Hope”.

DICLSAL has further worked with this theme to offer a particular focus for Religious Conferences:

“Pilgrims of Hope: On the path of peace”

o   Listening to cry of poor

o   Care of creation

o   Solidarity with all our brothers and sisters

Timetable

The Jubilee Year will be celebrated throughout 2025 via a calendar of special events, focusing on particular groups of people and specific themes. Within this calendar, 8-9 October 2025 is designated as the Jubilee of Consecrated Life, with a national celebration in home countries on 2 February 2025 (World Day of Consecrated Life).

Strategic steps: July – Dec 2023

Between July and December 2023, CRA is asked to enter the Preliminary Stage of Jubilee preparations at the national level in two ways:

1.       Start to promote the 2025 Jubilee among our Members (see Quick Links);

2.       Submit our ideas to a DICLSAL planning meeting in October 2023. The feedback received by DICLSAL from around the world will inform its preparatory meeting in Rome in February 2024.

Regarding the second item above: our submission to DICLSAL is to revolve around a two-part question:

Identify the thirst for reconciliation in Australia:

              i.        Where is the need for reconciliation strong?

             ii.        Where do the seeds of reconciliation already exist?

The term ‘reconciliation’ can be interpreted as we wish, within its overall context: the goal of a Jubilee Year is to inspire us to grow in holiness and to be transformed by God’s grace and mercy, thereby strengthening the Church’s witness to God’s loving mercy in and for the world and all creation.

What CRA is asking of its members: two pathways

As part of the discernment process, we invite the reflections of all our Members, drawing on whatever consultation they can muster within their communities, conscious of the tight timeframe.

A simple structure is provided for doing so.

We also hope to bring together a small group (6-7) of ‘discerners’ from among CRA’s Members in mid-September 2023, to consider the questions above on reconciliation. If you are interested in being part of this group, please contact me as soon as possible and by 18 August as we will meet mid-September.

We will consider the responses and also the discernment group’s insights and then produce a short, written response (2-3 pages). This document will be tabled and used as the basis of a discussion at a consultation meeting with DICLSAL in mid-October 2023.

Quick Links

Information from the Vatican:

·  Official website for Jubilee 2025

·  Letter of Pope Francis announcing the Jubilee
Year (11 February 2022)

·  Letter from DICLSAL to all consecrated men and
women (29 June 2023)

·  Timetable from DICLSAL: consecrated life on the
road to Jubilee

·  Website of DICLSAL and its Jubilee webpage

·  Jubilee logo

·  2-minute video

·  For further information, visit the official website
for Jubilee 2025