Pope Francis inrguated the Holy Year saying,
“The time has come for a new Jubilee, when once more the Holy Door will be flung open to invite everyone to an intense experience of the love of God that awakens in hearts the sure hope of salvation in Christ.” (Spes non confundit, n. 6).
Now Rome is preparing to welcome the many pilgrims who will make their way to the Eternal City on a journey of faith.
Historically, this centuries-old tradition was only institutionalised in 1300. Yet, we find the roots of the Jubilee go back to the Old Testament. The Jubilee was in fact a special year of grace for the Jews, the beginning of which was announced from Jerusalem by the blowing of the jobel, a ram’s horn. Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus, within the Code of Sanctity (Lev 17-26), describes in detail the rites and rules relating to the Jubilee. The command is clear: “This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, everyone to his own family estate.” (Lev 25:10).
Leviticus suggests, first of all, the importance of time. The fiftieth year was ‘holy’, it had something eternal and divine in it to be discovered and enjoyed. For this reason, debts were cancelled,and land was returned to its original owner. All landed property and money belonged to the tribes, not to individuals. This allowed for the division of territories, which could not be changed except by God’s will every fifty years during the Jubilee. The same applied to debts: during the Jubilee year the tribe would get back all its goods, children and land. Secondly, this time of grace saw the liberation of the slaves. They returned to their homes and families and regained their freedom.
From all this it is very clear that the Jubilee was conceived not only as a ritual, but as a true experience of reconciliation. The translation of the Septuagint emphasised this aspect. It translates the term jobel as áphesis, ‘experience of forgiveness’. The Greeks thus shifted the emphasis from the ritual to the moral and existential. The Church has also inherited this concept: the Holy Year is not a mere tradition, but an intense embrace of God’s mercy. It is no longer the sums of money that count, but the sins; it is no longer the reconciliation of lands or the liberation of slaves, but the return of grace to souls bound by sin, via a “most complete” forgiveness (SD, 868).
Let us be guided in this embrace and in this Jubilee Year in which the Lord opens his merciful arms wide to welcome all those who wish to experience his grace.