From the bulletin for the Baptism of the Lord (Jan 12, 2025)
Baptism of the Lord
Pope Francis has declared this year the Jubilee Year of Hope. But what does this mean?
For centuries, the Roman Church has periodically celebrated jubilees at regular intervals, typically every twenty five years. Some will recall Pope John Paul II’s Great Jubilee of 2000. (The Jubilee of Mercy in 2015 was dubbed “Extraordinary” in that it was outside of the usual cycle). But the practice of observing jubilees goes back to the Old Testament and is rooted in a divine command.
Leviticus 25 enjoins the Israelites to, “count seven weeks of years, [i.e.] forty-nine years. … And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family.” (Lev 25:8-10). This “proclamation of liberty” at the heart of the jubilee observance meant the emancipation of those who had sold themselves into servitude, the devolution of ancestral lands that had been sold (or rather, mortgaged) to their previous owners, and therefore the return of families to their lands. The land itself was to be “free” that year, for planting and sowing were prohibited and the people were to eat what the land produced on its own, trusting in the Lord’s provision.
The jubilee year was the climax of a whole complex of times of sacred rests. Each week culminated in the Sabbath rest, on which day the people were also to refrain from labors. Every seventh year was to be a “Sabbath year” in which the land was left fallow and unsown and the people were to trust in God to provide: “The sabbath of the land shall provide food for you…” (Lev 25:6-7). The jubilee came, then, as the great “reset” that concluded the cycle.
The Sabbath structure was intended as a check against idolatry and an exercise in faith. The chief rival to God for the people’s allegiance in the Old Testament is not Baal or Lucifer. It is human effort and the wealth it produces, “Mammon” as Jesus calls it in the Gospel. Fallen man’s great temptation is ever to worship the “work of his hands” (Isa 2:8) rather than the One of whose hands we are the work. To observe the various sabbath rests each week and every seven and then forty nine years required one to renounce the illusion that man can provide for himself better than God will for those who trust in Him. It required–and engendered–faith in Him as the source of all blessing.
Sadly, the Isrealites did not have enough faith to live the Sabbath and Jubilee years. In fact, according to the prophet Jeremiah, the destruction of Jerusalem and the forced “pilgrimage” into Babylonian exile were occasioned by the people’s refusal to observe these years of rest. Since the people had been unwilling to offer them freely, God exacted by force all the Sabbaths that were in arrears “until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfil seventy years” (2 Chron 36:20-21).
Evidently, God takes jubilee years very seriously. He wants to bless us, and free us from the idolatry of our own efforts, which will yield only “thorns and thistles” without His grace! Jesus’ whole mission, in fact, can be seen as coming to “proclaim liberty” and therefore inaugurating a Great Jubilee of salvation (see Is. 61:1). In declaring this year’s jubilee one of hope, Pope Francis is inviting us to rest from or rather renounce hope in our man’s always failing efforts to obtain peace and prosperity in the world, and to place hope in God alone.
How do we Christians live a jubilee? It’s all about rejoicing in the salvation that Jesus came to bring: deliverance from sin. Resolve, therefore, upon the frequency by which you will receive Reconciliation this year. Remarkably, this year only you can receive two plenary indulgences a day; work those practices into your daily routine to “free the captive” in purgatory and purify your own soul. Finally, the great invitation from the Holy Father is to return to your Catholic “home” through a pilgrimage to Rome. Thus PES fathers are leading a pilgrimage to Rome and other holy sites for parishioners of St. Mark’s this July (see the flyers on the bulletin boards). If that is not in the cards for you, plan a local pilgrimage this year for you and your family or friends. Break away from work and your routines. Prepare by prayer and fasting. Laden your heart with holy intentions and petitions. Then “go rejoicing” to the house of the Lord, imploring all the way the blessing of Him in whom we place all our hope.
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