By Clement Harrold

September 11, 2025

With his papal bull Spes Non Confundit (“Hope does not disappoint”), Pope Francis confirmed that 2025 would be an Ordinary Jubilee Year. While the Church occasionally celebrates additional jubilees, the ordinary celebration takes place every 25 years. This year’s jubilee officially began on Christmas Eve (December 24), 2024, and it will end on the Epiphany of the Lord (January 6), 2026.

The theme for the year, chosen by Pope France, is “pilgrims of hope.” But where does the idea of jubilee come from exactly? And what does it mean in its original biblical context? We’ll explore these questions below.

The Year of God’s Favor

The origins of the biblical idea of jubilee are found in Leviticus 25, which is part of what scholars refer to as the Holiness Code (see Lev 17-26). This is the section of the Mosaic Law which sets out the many ceremonial, judicial, and moral laws that the Israelites were expected to follow in order to become a people consecrated to God.

These rules include the prescriptions surrounding the jubilee:

And you shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall send abroad the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you; in it you shall neither sow, nor reap what grows of itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat what it yields out of the field. (Lev 25:8-12)

From this we learn that God established the jubilee as a liberating, joyous, and restful event. Every fifty years the jubilee was to serve as a kind of super-sabbath on which people would return to their place of origin (Lev 25:13), debts would be remitted (Lev 25:28), and indentured servants would be set free (Lev 25:39-41).

Even farming the fields was forbidden during the jubilee year; instead the Israelites were to have faith that God would send them such an abundant harvest in the forty-ninth year that there would be no need to reap their crops during the jubilee itself (see Lev 25:18-22).

The other noteworthy Old Testament passage which alludes to the Levitical idea of jubilee is found in the book of Isaiah. Writing within the somber context of the Babylonian Exile, the prophet looks forward with hope to the coming Messiah, and actually speaks in his voice:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

    because the Lord has anointed me

to bring good tidings to the afflicted;

    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,

    and the day of vengeance of our God;

    to comfort all who mourn . . . (Isa 61:1-2)

Here the mission of the Messiah is described in rousing terms as one of liberation and consolation. Scholars have also noticed that the Hebrew phraseology used by Isaiah is closely connected to the language of Leviticus 25; in other words, Isaiah is deliberately framing the coming Messiah as one who will enact and fulfill the jubilee which God had instituted several centuries earlier.

Fulfillment in Christ

But why was the Messiah needed to enact and fulfill the jubilee?

When we examine the pages of the Old Testament, we soon discover that the jubilee was rarely, if ever, put into practice. It seems that the ancient Israelites viewed the socio-economic demands of this liturgical celebration as simply too unrealistic, with the result that God’s call for a regular jubilee was ignored.

In a sense, this is not particularly surprising, given that the Old Testament is one long story of God’s people failing to keep His law (and suffering tyranny, exile, and numerous other misfortunes as a result).

And yet, through the reassuring words of the prophet Isaiah, Old Testament Israel received the promise that God continued to be faithful to her even when she had been unfaithful. Not only that, but He also still intended to implement the jubilee which they had abandoned—except this time it would be a spiritual jubilee, and it would be not just for Israel at a particular moment in history, but rather for all people and for all time.

To see how God brought this about, it’s worth revisiting the moment when Jesus returns to His hometown of Nazareth. St. Luke captures the scene:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written,

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

 

And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)

In this dramatic scene, Jesus quotes directly from the prophet Isaiah in order to identify Himself as the long-awaited Messiah who brings fulfillment to the law and the prophets. Even more than that, He identifies Himself as the Savior who brings liberation, healing, and rest—in other words, a new jubilee—to the whole world.

Through His saving work on the Cross, Jesus overcomes the slavery of sin and death, flings open the doors to our heavenly homeland, and invites us to enter into His rest: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matt 11:29-30; cf. Ps 95:11; Heb 4:8-11).

Today, in keeping with the mission she has received from Christ, the Catholic Church continues to periodically celebrate the Ordinary Jubilee as a time of renewed emphasis on the manifold blessings and graces of the New Covenant. (The Medieval Church even shortened the jubilee cycle from 50 to 25 years so as to increase the chances of people getting to experience a jubilee year during their lifetime.)

We should therefore enter into this sacred season by immersing ourselves in the Church’s recommended disciplines of pilgrimages, indulgences, and frequent reception of the sacraments. As twenty-first century Catholics, we are so blessed to be living in the new and unending “year of God’s favor” established by Christ. Now let’s make the most of it!

Further Reading

John S. Bergsma, Jesus and the Jubilee: The Biblical Roots of the Year of God’s Favor (Emmaus Road, 2024)

About Clement Harrold

Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.