Catholic Jubilee & The Holy Doors

 

Jubilee 2025 After the Doors Have Closed: Scripture, Tradition, and a Catholic Witness

Jubilee 2025 has ended. The Holy Doors are now closed, in Rome and throughout the world. As a Catholic, I do not experience this moment as a loss. I experience it as a reckoning, a quiet but demanding question: What did this year actually change in me?

A Jubilee is not meant to remain open. It is meant to form us, then send us back into ordinary life carrying what we received.

The Jubilee Is Biblical Before It Is Catholic

The Jubilee is not a medieval invention. It comes straight from Scripture.

In Leviticus 25:10, God commands Israel to “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.”¹ Debts were forgiven, slaves freed, and land restored. The Jubilee was not symbolic theater. It was a concrete act of mercy rooted in God’s ownership of all things.

Jesus places Himself directly in this tradition. At the start of His public ministry, He reads from Isaiah and declares:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to proclaim liberty to captives… to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18–19).²

Christ is not abolishing the Jubilee. He is fulfilling it.

When Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first Christian Jubilee in 1300, he was not importing something foreign into Christianity. He was drawing out what was already there: repentance, pilgrimage, reconciliation, and mercy grounded in Christ.³

“I Am the Door”: Scripture and the Holy Door

The Holy Door is one of the most misunderstood elements of a Jubilee.

Jesus says plainly:

“I am the door. Whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9).⁴

The Church takes this literally and sacramentally, not magically. Passing through a Holy Door is a bodily confession of faith in Christ.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that God uses visible signs to communicate invisible grace, because human beings are both spiritual and bodily creatures.⁵ This sacramental logic flows directly from the Incarnation.

St. Augustine of Hippo expressed this principle succinctly when he described the sacraments as *“visible words.”*⁶ The Holy Door functions in that same theological register.

The Closing of the Holy Doors

Now the doors are sealed again, and that closure is not accidental.

In Scripture, sacred time always has an end. Feasts conclude. Fast days end. Grace then calls for response.

The closing of the Holy Doors reminds me that grace is never meant to remain confined to a season. As the Catechism teaches, grace requires human cooperation and bears fruit in lived conversion.⁷

Christ does not close the door on us. He sends us out.

Rome: The Heart of the Universal Jubilee

In Rome, the traditional Holy Doors were opened and then closed at the four major papal basilicas:

• St. Peter’s Basilica

• St. John Lateran

• St. Mary Major

• St. Paul Outside the Walls

These basilicas are not talismans. They are visible signs of apostolic continuity and ecclesial unity.

During the Jubilee, Pope Francis repeatedly emphasized that the Holy Door symbolizes entry into the mercy of the Father through Christ alone.⁸

A Jubilee for the Whole Church: Including San Diego

Jubilee 2025 was intentionally universal.

While Rome held pride of place, dioceses around the world designated local pilgrimage sites so the faithful could participate fully. This included my own city, San Diego.

In San Diego, designated Jubilee pilgrimage sites included:

• St. Joseph Cathedral, the mother church of the Diocese of San Diego

• Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first Franciscan mission in California and a foundational site of Catholic evangelization

• Additional diocesan shrines and parishes designated by the bishop for Jubilee prayer, confession, and pilgrimage

Participating locally reinforced a core Catholic truth: the Church is universal, but mercy is always personal and near.

Indulgences, Healing, and the Catechism

Indulgences are often misunderstood.

The Catechism explains that sin produces both eternal and temporal effects.⁹ While sacramental confession reconciles the sinner to God, healing and purification often remain necessary.

This teaching is grounded in both Scripture and pastoral realism. St. John Chrysostom described repentance as a medicine for the soul, emphasizing healing rather than legalism.¹⁰

Indulgences are ordered toward that healing, not toward bypassing conversion.

Responding to the Claim That the Jubilee Is “Pagan”

Claims that the Jubilee or Holy Doors are pagan misunderstand both history and theology.

The Jubilee originates in Jewish law, not pagan myth. Its Christian development flows from Scripture, not syncretism. The use of ritual and physical signs is not pagan but biblical, sacramental, and incarnational.

As the Catechism affirms, Christianity rejects superstition while affirming the legitimate use of sacred signs ordered toward God.¹¹

The Jubilee calls sinners to repentance, confession, and trust in Christ. That is not paganism. That is the Gospel.

What Remains Now That the Doors Are Closed

The Holy Doors are sealed again, in Rome and in San Diego. But Christ remains open.

As Pope Francis has often reminded the Church, *“God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of asking.”*¹²

The Jubilee has ended. The work continues.

If this Holy Year meant anything, it will be revealed now, in how I live.

The doors are closed.

Christ is not.

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Endnotes

1. Lev. 25:10 (RSV).

2. Luke 4:18–19; cf. Isa. 61:1–2.

3. Boniface VIII, Antiquorum Habet Fida Relatio (Bull of Jubilee, 1300).

4. John 10:9.

5. Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), nos. 1146–1148.

6. Augustine of Hippo, In Johannis Evangelium Tractatus, 80.3.

7. CCC, nos. 2001–2002.

8. Francis, Misericordiae Vultus (Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee of Mercy), no. 3.

9. CCC, nos. 1472–1473.

10. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Repentance and Almsgiving.

11. CCC, nos. 2110–2111.

12. Francis, General Audience, February 19, 2014.