E17: The Jubilee Year Indulgence | Pilgrims of Hope

What’s special about a Jubilee Year and why do I keep hearing about an indulgence? In this episode, we’ll learn what an indulgence actually is - hint: it’s not what you learned in school! We’ll also talk about the difference between plenary and partial indulgences as well as why the plenary indulgence is offered during a Jubilee Year.

Tune in to learn all these things and more in this month's episode of Catholicism 101!

Bible Passages Quoted:
-Luke 4:18-19
-Colossians 1:24
-Galatians 5:1
-John 13:15

Resources:
12 Ways to Obtain a Jubilee Indulgence
Official Vatican Website for the Jubilee Year 2025 - Pilgrims of Hope

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. Today we are going to talk about the Jubilee Year and what is so special about the Jubilee Year, and in particular, the plenary indulgence that is offered during the Jubilee Year. So this year, 2025, is designated as an ordinary Jubilee year. And we'll get into what that means, ordinary versus extraordinary and all of that. But 2025 is a Jubilee year in the Catholic Church. Actually, it began on December 24th of 2024. And then it will continue to January 6th, 2026, whenever Pope Francis closes the holy door in the Vatican. Now the theme of this holy year, this Jubilee year, is Pilgrims of Hope. And so we're really focusing on the theological virtue of hope. And I'm going to read from um the bull slash the decree of, you know, the announcement of the Jubilee year, but also the decree on the indulgences. So now 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. In the bull announcing the ordinary jubilee of 2025, at a moment in history in which, heedless of the horrors of the past, humanity is confronting yet another ordeal as many peoples are prey to brutality and violence. The Holy Father calls on all Christians to become pilgrims of hope. This is a virtue which must be sourced above all in the grace of God and in the fullness of his mercy. It is to be rediscovered in the signs of the times, which, encompassing the yearning of human hearts in need of God's saving presence, ought to become signs of hope. So that's the theme and the purpose of this holy year, this Jubilee year, 2025. But let's talk about what a Jubilee year is. So ordinarily a Jubilee occurs every 25 years, but an extraordinary Jubilee can be called by the Pope at any time. So for example, you may remember in 2015 we celebrated a Jubilee year, and it was the Jubilee of Mercy. Pope Francis declared that one. And it was actually on the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of Vatican II. Also in 1983, Saint John Paul II proclaimed a jubilee to mark the 1950th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Christ. And then also in 1933, Pope Pius XI proclaimed a jubilee for the 1900th anniversary of the Passion of Christ. So you can kind of see a theme and why and when extraordinary jubilee years are called, but we can always count on an ordinary jubilee occurring every 25 years in the church. So whether ordinary or extraordinary, the purpose of like a Jubilee year in general, it is intended to be a time of returning to a proper relationship with God. And not only that, but in a proper relationship with one another and all of creation. So that being said, there is this primary focus of every Jubilee year that kind of undergirds the whole thing. And it is the forgiveness of debts. So we seek reconciliation not only with God, but with our fellow man. And throughout history, the Jubilee has actually been marked by the release of prisoners and the return of stolen land. And all of this together really empowers us and directs us to enter into that mission of Christ as he proclaimed in the Gospel of Luke. And he's quoted, this is whenever he's reading from the prophet Isaiah at his hometown of Nazareth, like in the temple. He says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. So not only are we called to be recipients of the freedom that Christ offers us, but we are called to let the freedom that we have received overflow to others so that they can also experience just this abundance of life that has been given to us by God. Now, one of the things you're probably seeing and hearing about whenever we're talking about the Jubilee year is indulgences, that there is this plenary indulgence that is offered to us during the Jubilee year. Now, most of us get a little bit um, I don't want to say triggered because that's not the right word, but we kind of go into this mindset of like, oh, indulgences are bad. Indulgences are like that's what that's why the Protestant Reformation started in all of this. I don't want to get too into it because there is like a slight, there is a sliver of truth in that, that the abuse of indulgences and the lack of education and understanding of what an indulgence really is, led to the abuse of them and um the the illicit like selling of them and all of this. And I have more details about that in my episode on the Catholic Reformation and the Council of Trent, the steps that they took to correct the root of the problem, which was a lot of miseducation. So, in order for us to understand what indulgences actually are and to kind of correct our own misunderstanding, we're gonna first talk about what they're not. So, indulgences were presented to me when I was in high school in my history class as a get out of hell free card. Now, yes, I went to a Catholic high school, but granted, also my history teacher wasn't Catholic, but they were presented to me as a get out of hell free card or like a purchased pardon. Basically, you could buy either your way or someone you love who has passed away, you could buy their way into heaven either out of out of purgatory, or if you're buying it for yourself or someone who is living, then you just get to avoid purgatory altogether. But that honestly is just not true. Okay. They are not a get out of hell free card. It is not a purchase pardon, it is not um a one-way ticket to heaven. No, you don't have to go to purgatory, especially through like financial means. Like you can't buy them. You can't buy them. So that was the big problem with the 16th century and all of that. So now I am very excited to explain to you what an indulgence actually is. So Saint Thomas Aquinas, he said this so beautifully. He said, He who gains indulgences is not thereby released outright from what he owes as a penalty, but he is provided with the means of paying it. So, in other words, indulgences don't mean that God is like willing to look the other way or avoid any acknowledgement of the sins that you have committed. But indulgences, actually, what they do is they draw on the treasury of the church. Now, the treasury of the church is this like bank of grace that has been merited for us by Christ and the saints. And so whenever, whenever you gain an indulgence, it draws on that treasury of grace, that treasury of the church, and it applies the graces necessary to make up for the sins you have committed. Now it is just a fact of life that whenever we do something bad, something good needs to be done to make up for it, right? Or we we always want the the good, the goodness of the world to overshadow the bad. You know, we we want good to win in the end. And honestly, we know that good will win in the end. Good has honestly already won. So even though that's kind of hard to see in our time, we're not gonna get into that. But it is just a fact of life that whenever something bad happens or we choose to do something bad, we have to do something good, or something good has to be done to outweigh that. Now, an indulgence, an indulgence carries such a significant like spiritual weight of goodness that has the power to outweigh, and not necessarily in a way that it just kind of covers it up, but it it transforms it. You know, there there is this saying of God can write straight with our crooked lines. It's it's kind of along the same lines of that, of it he turns it into goodness. And the really nice thing is we don't have to understand how he does that. I mean, there are many crooked lines in life that we will not understand how on earth they were made straight until uh we get to the last judgment and all will be revealed. And that's gonna be, honestly, it's gonna be a bop in time. I'm really excited. But back to indulgences and the treasury of the church. So the treasury of the church, like I said, it is it is this bank of super abundant grace that the Lord honestly wants so badly. He just earnestly desires for us to withdraw from this bank of grace. Now, we're gonna talk about um the two parts of this treasury. So there is first, um, you know, you can kind of think of a bank. In order to withdraw from a bank, you have to deposit. And then vice versa, if something is deposited into a bank, you eventually want to withdraw it, right? So we're gonna talk about the deposit first. And the deposit of these graces come from the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So we call that Christ merited all of the graces necessary for the salvation of the entire world, every single one of us. So he underwent all of the torment, the torture, the humiliation, and just this excruciating pain as a sacrifice in order to gain our salvation. So we often like to think of our salvation as the fact that um Jesus Christ opened the gates of heaven and now we are able to enter. And yes, this is true. But we often forget about the other part of salvation in the fact that he won a ton of graces for us. Like there's there is not a word to um to describe just how much how much grace he won for us. Super abundant doesn't even begin to touch it. But he won just again, the super abundance of graces that we need to overcome sin and grow in virtue during our earthly pilgrimage. So basically, there are two sides to salvation, redemption, all of this. So, objective redemption is the fact that Jesus Christ won all of these graces for us and he opened the gates of heaven for us. In other words, Jesus Christ, by his passion, death, and resurrection, and honestly everything he did on earth, he deposited the fullness of the only deposit to be made into this bank, the treasury of the church. So now we have this bank that is just absolutely chalked full. And the thing is not only do you deposit into a bank, but you deposit so that you can withdraw, right? So there is a second aspect of redemption here, and it's technically called subjective redemption. And the whole thing with subjective redemption and why there is such a thing as subjective redemption is because authentic love just is not forced. And Christ will not pour these graces out upon you unless you give him permission to. So subjective redemption has to do with our, yes, us giving the Lord permission to give us a gift. And not only giving him permission, but actually receiving it. So there is this thing of anytime you give a gift, you want the person you're giving it to to receive it, right? And I always give this analogy to my OCIA people of if I went and got a Lamborghini or whatever, you know, whatever your favorite car is, and I'm like, hey, it's parked outside. Here are the keys. And I reach out my hand to give you the keys, and you just sit there and you look at me and you're like and then you walk away. You did not receive the gift, as in you're not getting the Lamborghini. Okay. I mean, it's a little bit of a silly analogy, but it works. Okay, you have to receive the gift when it is given to you if you want the gift to do anything. And in order to help us not only know to receive the gift that we need to receive it, but also help us to actually receive the gift. Um, this is where the saints come in. So it's similar to how uh whenever parents and godparents have an infant baptized, what they're doing is they're speaking faith on their behalf, right? So the saints, kind of in this way, they partake in redemptive suffering. You know, they they offer they offer it up. They are professionals, okay, at offering it up, you know, while they were on earth, but also they are literal professionals at praying for us for the rest of eternity as they are in heaven. So um a great example of this is literally from Scripture, St. Paul, in Colossians chapter one, verse 24. He says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church. Now, real quick, whenever he's talking about something lacking in Christ's afflictions, he is not at all referring to the deposit of grace that Christ made into the treasury of the church, this bank of just pure, pure redeeming grace. No, what he is talking about there is humanity's tendency to not draw on this bank. And so he partakes in redemptive suffering on our behalf so that we will have an open heart and learn to receive these graces and that the Lord will bestow them on us. And you can please actually listen to my last episode on redemptive suffering and Christian hope and how powerful redemptive suffering is. And I have a really beautiful story about Catherine of Siena that a priest that I went to Meggory with shared. And it is just absolutely beautiful. So there was this woman named Palmarina, and she was on the brink of death. And the the thing is, she wasn't really, she wasn't dying well, as in she was in just this pitiful state, full of hatred, um, and just really just malice. She had some rotten things in her heart. And Jesus revealed this to her, and he also told her that he could not let this hatred and this malice go unpunished. And so Catherine, the absolute madwoman that she is, in the most beautiful way, in the best way, she throws herself to the ground and she says, Oh my Lord, if you will not grant me the mercy I have asked for my sister, I shall not leave this spot alive. Punish me for all her sins. I beg you, oh most merciful Lord, by all your goodness and mercy, not to allow my sister's soul to issue from her body until she has been given your grace and obtained your mercy. And so what ended up happening is Catherine is just imploring the Lord and praying like crazy for Palmarina. And um, what ended up happening was uh Palmarina was in just pure agony for like three days. Yeah, three days. And and through her suffering, through Palmarina's suffering and the prayers of Catherine of Sienna, she was enlightened, and um, the Lord helped her to recognize her fault and to be sorry for it and to ask for salvation. And then she died. And then after this, the Lord shows Catherine the soul of Palmarina, and she said, No words can describe it, though it was still not clothed in the glory of the beatific vision, but only had the beauty of nature and baptismal grace. So when Catherine says that she was not yet clothed in the beatific vision, what that means is she didn't see her soul in heaven. She saw her soul in purgatory, and it is still indescribably beautiful. Though she hadn't reached the fullness of glory in heaven, her soul is still just utterly and indescribably beautiful. So when he is showing Catherine Palmer in a soul, this is what Jesus says. He says, See, most loving daughter, for you I have retrieved this soul that was already lost. Do you not think it gracious and beautiful? Who would refuse any labor to win so lovely a creature? If I, who am the ultimate beauty from which all other beauty proceeds, was so carried away by the love of souls that I descended upon earth and shed my blood to redeem them? How much more should you be prepared to do for one another that such a creature should not be lost? That is why I have shown you this soul, that you may burn evermore ardently to procure the salvation of all souls, and induce others to do the same, according to the grace that is given to you. So in response, Catherine actually asks the Lord for the grace to see the souls of all people that she encounters. And she does this so she can be just perpetually motivated. And motivated isn't even a strong enough word, so that she is just perpetually driven to redemptively suffer for these people and to do penance on their behalf. So in his goodness and mercy and love, not only for Catherine, but for all of us, he gave her that grace. And her spiritual director, um, father or excuse me, Blessed Raymond, asked her about it. And she said, Father, if you could see the beauty of a rational soul, you would not doubt for a minute that you would be prepared to give your life a hundred times over for the salvation of that one soul. For there is nothing in this world that can compare with such beauty. So Catherine is so inflamed with the love of the Lord and love for all people, for all souls, that she lived solely on the Eucharist for 25 years until she died at age 33. And this extreme fasting, I have no doubt, was a redemptive suffering, is her doing penance for all of us. And here's the thing we're all called to be saints, and we're all called to participate in redemptive suffering. And this is a redemptive suffering that though it is really hard in the moment, I mean it it brings utter joy, it really does, it brings an unshakable joy. And again, for for more on that, listen to the last episode on redemptive suffering and Christian hope and how to do that, and how it brings us joy and peace. And so that is a big piece of subjective redemption, of a of withdrawing from that. Bank and receiving the gift of those graces. Redemptive suffering is a huge part of that. And again, that's where the the saints come in and their redemptive suffering and also their prayers for us and our prayers for one another. So circling back to indulgences and how it relates to all of this is indulgences are such a powerful way for us to withdraw from that treasury of grace, the treasury of the church, and apply those graces of subjective redemption to not only our souls, but the souls of others. So in order to gain an indulgence, there are certain requirements to do this. And um there's some general ones, but then there's also typically a requirement that has to do with that specific indulgence. So since we're talking about the Jubilee year, I'm gonna talk about the requirements to gain that Jubilee year indulgence. And it is a plenary indulgence. So stay tuned for what a plenary indulgence is versus a partial indulgence. So the requirements, um, you have to have this attitude and disposition and intent to be detached from sin, um, even venial sins, you know, not just mortal sins, but venial sins. You have to have this desire to be detached from sins and be contrite, honestly, to be sorry for your sins. Now, also in line with that, you have to go to confession within 20 days. And 20, 20 is kind of a give or take. It has to be a reasonable amount of time. Like you don't want to unnecessarily delay it and make excuses. You know, you want to go to confession as soon as you can, as soon as, you know, reasonably you're able to, but don't delay it. Also, you are to receive the Holy Eucharist. You're to receive the Holy Eucharist. Again, it's within that reasonable amount of time, but the preference is um to receive communion on the day that you um do like the special requirement for the indulgence. So for the the Jubilee year, this the special requirement to gain a Jubilee indulgence is a pilgrimage to a holy site, a pilgrimage to a holy site. And there are designated holy sites in Rome. There are designated holy sites, though, if you're not able to go to Rome and the Vatican and all of this during the Jubilee year because most of us can't. Um the the Pope has also given the authority to the bishops, to the bishop of each diocese, to denote a holy place in your diocese for you to make a pilgrimage to so that you can still gain this plenary indulgence. Okay. And typically you want to receive communion on the day that you make that pilgrimage. Now, also on the day that you make this pilgrimage, you know, specifically for the Jubilee, or um, if it's a different indulgence, you do that special requirement. You must also pray for the Pope's intentions, for the intentions of the Pope. And if you don't know what it is specifically, um, you can you can also look them up online. You can look he has a different intention for each month of the year. And so you can just simply Google Pope's intentions for 2025 and you will find it very easily. And if you're listening to this when it is published in February, uh Pope Francis's intention for February, his prayer intention is for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Now, I actually have linked in the resources an article from the National Catholic Register that outlines 12 ways to obtain a Jubilee indulgence because there's some nuances here and there. You know, there are a lot of people who are homebound, or a lot of people who who really just can't make it to any pilgrimage site. And so there are ways for them to still gain that plenary indulgence. And um, again, the National Catholic Register is just one of many places that has the different ways that you can do this if you're unable to fulfill that pilgrimage requirement. These requirements have a purpose, okay? They all have an end goal. They're not just things to check off of a list. Um the the weight that they carry, each in and of themselves, is really powerful and really deep, though we might not always recognize it or feel it. So these requirements of having a resolve to avoid sin, going to confession, making a good confession, and doing your penance. You know, you got to do your penance. Okay, uh, receiving communion, you know, going to mass, receiving communion, receiving the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. And then praying for the Pope's intentions. What these things do is they bring us into a deeper communion, not only with Christ, but also with the saints and one another. So this not only strengthens our hope that we that we want to be in full communion with them and just our hope that we will, but the gift of indulgences and the spiritual weight that these requirements, that fulfilling these requirements carries, and the gift of that indulgence gives us certainty that we will be forgiven in abundance. Now, the indulgence that is offered during this Jubilee year is a plenary indulgence, but there are also such things as partial indulgences. A plenary indulgence, this is the big one, a plenary indulgence is remission of the entire temporal punishment due to sin so that no further expiation is required in purgatory. And this is, again, the one that is offered in the Jubilee year. A partial indulgence, it is remission of only a certain portion of the penalty. Now, in order for us to understand indulgences better, we have to understand what the effects of sin are. And this is generally an area where most people are under-catechized. You know, we don't know the full truth, we don't really understand fully what the effects of sin are. And there are three there is guilt, there is the penalty or the punishment that is due, and then there's the stain. So the guilt, the fact that you are guilty. And that effect of sin is dealt with in confession, right? So you are forgiving, you are no longer guilty. Okay, but there's also still the penalty or punishment due, and then there's also the stain. So the penalty is dealt with by works of penance, both within the sacrament of confession, you know, you're given a penance to complete the sacrament, and that begins to touch and deal with the penalty that is due for the sins you have committed. Um, but you can also do penance outside of the sacrament of confession. And not only can you, but really you should. You should. And so these are things such as, you know, observing the devotion of first Fridays and first Saturdays. So um first Fridays are days of prayer and penance and reparation um for sins committed against the sacred heart of Jesus. And then the first Saturday of the month is um the same thing, but towards the Immaculate Heart of Mary. So there are those devotions. There's also just general practices of fasting and almsgiving, and then, you know, redemptive suffering. Redemptive suffering. So the penalty or punishment due is dealt with by penance. Now the stain. So the stain is kind of like a moral twisting. You you know, it's the more you sin, the more you're inclined to sin. Okay. And this is dealt with a little bit differently. So whenever you're baptized, you are washed clean. And the same thing happens with indulgences, whether it be plenary or partial. Um, if it's plenary, you're you're wiped free of the stain. If it's a partial indulgence, you're warped warped. You're no, you are wiped, you know, partially clean of that stain. Now, real quick, this does not mean that you will not struggle with temptations or that you will never ascend again, because we are still imperfect humans while we are still here on earth. Okay. So the stain and the stain is really the indulgences really touch that because really the only other thing that does is baptism. And a little fun fact, um, baptism actually washes away all guilt, penalty, and stain. So there was um the practice through like early in Christianity, early in Catholicism, and all of this. Um, there was the practice of people waited until they were on their deathbed to be baptized. Absolutely wild. I mean, I get it, but also absolutely wild. Anyway, now let's let's kind of wrap this up. We've been talking about indulgences and plenary versus partial and all of this, and so the whole thing we and we started with the Jubilee year, and so you're kind of like Emily, get to the point. Okay, so why are plenary indulgences offered during the Jubilee year? If you remember from the beginning of this episode, that the overarching theme of every Jubilee is the forgiveness of debts, and um, as St. Paul says in Galatians, the freedom for which Christ has set us free. So when we allow ourselves to be oriented into right relationship with God through the remission of sins that is offered by these indulgences, the graces that we receive overflow actually outside of ourselves and they serve as inspiration for others. So seeing, I mean, you seeing the witness of others living the gospel and living it with joy is just infectious. You know, think of why you love the stories of the saints so much. Why do we love seeing pictures of joyful saints? I mean, I like I'm thinking of Sister Claire Crockett. She's not yet a saint, she was just declared servant of God, and so she's in the process of becoming a saint. But anytime you see like pictures and videos of her, she is just beaming. Why do we love that? Because it's infectious and it makes us joyful too. So the other thing with this, too, is that we also, every time we pray the Our Father, we say, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And in addition to this, um, Jesus says in the Gospel of John, as I have done for you, you should also do. So the Jubilee year, this this year of this holy, holy, holy year, not only does it want to bring you back into right relationship with God and experience the joy and peace of his communion, but its mission is also to bring us all together in communion, in harmony with one another. Because um, spoiler alert, that's gonna be heaven. So I really encourage you not only um to obtain a plenary indulgence for yourself, um, but actually the cool thing is you can in this holy year, you can obtain a plenary indulgence, like one per day. There's more details about that in the resources that I linked in the show notes. But not only do I encourage you to do that for yourself, I also really encourage you um to take this year and forgive. Just really take forgiveness to heart. And I have a whole nother episode on that, on forgiveness, you know. Who is it really for? So uh be sure to tune into that one as well. But I hope um you have a better understanding of the Jubilee year and indulgences in general and why everyone is making such a big deal about it. You know, you're seeing it in your bulletins and everything, but I hope you have a better understanding and uh just have new insight into Christ's heart for you. But until next time, I hope you have a blessed day.