Jubilee 2025
-
-
Proclamation, Opening, and Closing DatesThe 2025 Jubilee was officially proclaimed on Thursday, May 9, 2024, by Pope Francis, who presided over a formal reading of the Jubilee’s papal bull of indiction.
The papal bull, titled “Spes Non Confudit,” meaning “Hope Does Not Disappoint,” declares that the Jubilee Year will:- Officially begin on Christmas Eve 2024
- End in dioceses throughout the world on December 28, 2025
- Officially close in Rome on the solemnity of Epiphany on January 6, 2026.
-
-
The Origin of the Jubilee Year
In the opening verses of Leviticus 25, the Lord informs Moses of the Israelite's future obligation to observe a year of rest during the seventh year of inhabiting the Promised Land, known as the Sabbatical, or Sabbath Year. They are not to sow, harvest, or prune during this time. This observance will repeat every seven years.
The directive to celebrate a Jubilee Year is described in the remaining 48 verses of chapter 25. This year of celebration and restoration occurs after seven cycles of seven years, or every 50 years. This naturally places a Jubilee year immediately after a Sabbatical/Sabbath Year. Like the Sabbatical Year, the Jubilee Year also required that land be allowed to rest yet again; there was no sowing, harvesting, or pruning. The Lord promises to “bestow such blessings” on his people during the sixth year–those years that are multiples of six– “that there will then be crop enough for three years.”
During the Jubilee year, indentured Israelites were to be freed, debts forgiven, and land previously sold to pay debts was restored to the proper ancestral owner. These regulations preserve social and economic equilibrium by preventing cycles of intergenerational poverty among God’s people to create what we think of as a utopia. As Dr. John Bergsma teaches, “Since it recurred usually once in a lifetime, the impoverished Israelite–or at least the one projected by the text–would spend most of his life in anticipation of this event of restoration.” Dr. Bergsma uses the phrase, “at least the one projected by the text,” because while there are subtle references to a Jubilee in the Old Testament beyond Leviticus 25, there are no actual narrative stories about the observance.
The word jubilee comes from the Hebrew word yobel (jobel), which means "ram's horn." A shofar, or bugle-like instrument made from a ram’s horn, was used to announce the start of the jubilee every 50 years.
