Walking with ‘renewed hope’ in the Jubilee Year: Opening Masses signal start

Joining Daniel Cardinal DiNardo and Auxiliary Bishop Italo Dell’Oro, CRS, bishops worldwide celebrated the opening of the 2025 Holy Year Dec. 29 with Masses in their cathedrals and co-cathedrals to mark the Jubilee, which is themed “Pilgrims of Hope.” (Photo by Marcus Norwood/Herald)

HOUSTON (OSV News) — Joining Daniel Cardinal DiNardo and Auxiliary Bishop Italo Dell’Oro, CRS, bishops worldwide celebrated the opening of the 2025 Holy Year Dec. 29 with Masses in their cathedrals and co-cathedrals to mark the Jubilee, which is themed “Pilgrims of Hope.”

The Masses were celebrated with the Rite of the Opening of the Jubilee Year.

In Houston, Cardinal DiNardo began Mass at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart across the street at the Fiorenza Plaza with a prayer opening that greeted attendees saying, “The God of hope, who in the Word made flesh fills us with every joy and hope in the faith, through the power of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”

Later that day, Bishop Dell’Oro continued that same greeting at an Opening Mass at St. Mary Cathedral Basilica on Galveston Island, which also began with a procession around the historic basilica.

Both led an exhortation and prayer that called God “the hope that does not disappoint, the beginning and the end” and asked him to bless the “pilgrim journey this Holy Year.”

“Bind up the wounds of hearts that are broken, loosen the chains that hold us slaves of sin, and grant your people the joy of the Spirit so that they may walk with renewed hope toward their longed-for destiny, Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns forever and ever,” he prayed.

That prayer was followed by a Gospel reading from John 14, in which Jesus explained to His disciples His relationship to God the Father, and then a reading from the papal bull announcing the Jubilee Year.

Then, at their separate Masses, both Cardinal DiNardo and Bishop Dell’Oro said, “Hail, O Cross of Christ, our only true hope,” to which the congregation replied: “You are our hope. We will never be confounded.”

Jubilee prayers were repeated across the U.S. as bishops opened the Jubilee Year on the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, which is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas Day.

The opening rite preceded a procession of the faithful to the cathedrals for Mass. The procession included a Jubilee cross, a cross of significance for the local Church designated for a special liturgical role during the Jubilee Year.

At the Cathedral Basilica, a special wreath of flowers was hung from the processional cross. At the Co-Cathedral, a gold and red stole hung from the cross, leading the procession. After the congregations entered the cathedrals, a special rite of the commemoration of Baptism was followed by a sprinkling rite throughout the cathedrals.

Beginning a holy year

A Jubilee or holy year is a special year in the life of the Church currently celebrated every 25 years. The most recent ordinary Jubilee was in 2000, with Pope Francis calling for an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015-2016.

Jubilee years have been held at regular intervals in the Catholic Church since 1300, but they trace their roots to the Jewish tradition of marking a Jubilee year every 50 years.
According to the Vatican website for the Jubilee, these years in Jewish history were “intended to be marked as a time to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation, and involved the forgiveness of debts, the return of misappropriated land, and a fallow period for the fields.”

On Dec. 24, 2024, Pope Francis opened the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to launch the holy year. Coinciding with other diocesan celebrations Dec. 29, 2024, Baldo Cardinal Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, opened Holy Doors at St. John Lateran, the pope’s cathedral.

Holy Doors also opened at Rome’s other two major basilicas, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls, Jan. 1 and Jan. 5, respectively. Pope Francis also opened Holy Doors Dec. 26, 2024, at Rome’s Rebibbia prison, which Vatican officials said was a papal first. Unlike the practice in the Year of Mercy, diocesan cathedrals will not designate their own holy doors.

In his homily, Cardinal DiNardo reflected on the day’s reading from the book of Sirach, the identity of Jesus, and the Gospel account of Jesus pointing to God the Father when talking with his earthly parents after they found Him at the temple.

“Pope Francis says we should be looking for Jesus and walking with Him as Mary and Joseph did,” he said, stressing the role of Mary as the perfect disciple of hope.

“In this discipleship of hope, we should also be looking for those who are at the margins and are outcasts,” he continued, saying that they are people who would help us “to hear again and understand again the identity of Jesus.”

He encouraged the faithful to share this hope in God. “Find one person who seems to be out of hope, maybe anxious, maybe despairing. Take their cause to yourself. Become friendly. Allow your sense of hope that you gained from your Christian faith, your Catholic understanding of faith, shine on them,” Cardinal DiNardo said.

Both Masses in Houston and Galveston included the hymn “Pilgrims of Hope,” which the Holy See commissioned for the Jubilee Year.

More than 30 million pilgrims are expected in Rome over the course of the Jubilee Year, with many of them seeking a special indulgence offered in the Holy Year. However, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship, the Jubilee indulgence may be obtained in Catholics in Galveston-Houston by visiting the Cathedral Basilica and the Co-Cathedral.

Some bishops offered the Holy Year’s plenary indulgence during the Dec. 29 Masses. The Holy Year will end at St. Peter’s on Jan. 6, 2026, with diocesan celebrations ending Dec. 28, 2025.

More resources and information about upcoming events and programs for the celebration of the Jubilee Year are available online at www.archgh.org/jubilee2025.