May 2025 Jubilee Realize “genuine personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, door of our salvation”: Bishop in South Africa

In announcing the 2025 Jubilee Year, the Holy Father invited the people of God across the globe to “to open our souls to the working of the Holy Spirit to soften the hardness of our hearts and for enemies to be reconciled,” Bishop Selemela said.

The South African Catholic Bishop went on to underscore the importance of the Holy Door during the 2025 Jubilee Year, saying, “The symbolism of the door reminds us that Jesus is the door to our salvation, our happiness and our peace, and that only Jesus is the key that opens us to the fountain of God’s mercy.”

“In this sense, a call to come back to God makes sense because we all desire life in abundance, which only Jesus can give. Without Jesus, our lives are empty, meaningless, and with no direction,” he said.

The Holy Father announced the start of a Year of Prayer on 21 January 2024 in preparation for the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, the second in his Pontificate after the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015.

He said that the 2025 Jubilee Year will be “a year dedicated to rediscovering the great value and absolute need for prayer in one’s personal life, in the life of the Church, and in the world.”

Months later, on the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ on 9 May 2024, the Holy Father solemnly proclaimed the upcoming Jubilee Year 2025 at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica, during which he delivered the Bull of Indiction of the planned Jubilee, “Spes non confundit” (Hope does not disappoint).

The Jubilee Year provides the people of God across the globe an opportunity to participate in various planned jubilee events at the Vatican and in their respective Episcopal Sees and Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (ICLSAL).

In his homily, Bishop Selemela referred to the Bull of Indiction, saying, “For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the door of our salvation, whom the church is charged to proclaim always and everywhere.” 

He said that the participation of the people of God in the 2025 Jubilee Year “will earn us an indulgence, another way in which God, through the church, offers us a second chance, no matter our conditions in life.”

An indulgence, the Catholic Church leader, who started his Episcopal Ministry in September 2022 said, is a “remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, which can be obtained through specific acts of faith, such as prayer, acts of charity, and participation in the sacraments.”

The Auxiliary Bishop of Pretoria Archdiocese explained that although there are a number of indulgences, this Jubilee Year provides the opportunity for plenary indulgences, which removes all temporal punishment, provided prescribed acts, such as prayer, pilgrimages, and the sacrament of reconciliation are performed. 

In Pretoria Archdiocese, the Local Ordinary, Archbishop Dabula Anthony Mpako, inaugurated the Jubilee Year by lighting the Jubilee candle and having Fr. Patrick Rakeketsi read out his pastoral letter.

In the letter, Archbishop Mpako described the Jubilee as a “special year of forgiveness and reconciliation” and called on the people of God to renew their relationships with God and one another.

“As pilgrims in the journey of faith, we are called to maintain our hope, despite the challenges and difficulties encountered in our lives and in the world,” Archbishop Mpako said.

He urged Catholics to follow Pope Francis’ directives for the Jubilee Year, including working for peace, promoting human dignity, healing the sick, and supporting migrants and the elderly.

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Archbishop Mpako announced the establishment of a Jubilee Year Committee with the mandate to oversee activities of the yearlong event set to conclude on 6 January 2026, including Archdiocesan events aimed to unite all Catholics in the South African Metropolitan See. 

He also introduced symbols of the Jubilee, including the pilgrimage cross, which bears the Jubilee logo with four pilgrims anchored to the cross. 

Another symbol of the Jubilee Year is the icon of Our Lady.

Fr. Alfred Bwana, who introduced the symbols during the December 29 celebration noted that the cross, which has the Jubilee logo that showed four pilgrims holding on to the cross with the shape of an anchor at the bottom, is meant to stabilize our hope against the torrents of despondency. 

Jubilee candles were handed to Dans of the six Deaneries to be distributed among parishioners.

Archbishop Mpako invited Catholics across Southern Africa to embrace the Jubilee as a journey of hope, renewing their faith in Jesus and kindling the courage to face life's challenges.

Kati Dijane contributed to the writing of this story