By Helen Osman and Cindy Wooden
Photos by Justin Cardona
Pilgrims from parishes throughout the Oakland Diocese filled the Cathedral of Christ the Light with a standing-room only crowd on Sunday, Jan. 19, to celebrate the opening of the Jubilee Year of Hope and the reception of a historic cross at the cathedral.
Pope Francis has declared a Jubilee Year of Hope in 2025. "During the Holy Year," the Pope has prayed, "may the light of Christian hope illumine every man and woman, as a message of God’s love addressed to all! And may the Church bear faithful witness to this message in every part of the world!"
The concept of jubilee is outlined in Leviticus 25. Catholics are encouraged to focus on the principles of jubilee justice, which emphasis reconciliation and restoration of right relationships.
The Catholic Church has been celebrating jubilee years consistently since 1300. Over the centuries, many customs and rituals have become part of jubilee year observances, including the establishment of holy doors, special pilgrimage sites and gatherings. For this Jubilee Year of Hope, Pope Francis requested each diocese to establish a Holy Cross as a focus of attention, reverence and devotion.
On Sunday, a group of parishioners from Mission San Jose and their pastor, Father Anthony Huong Le, accompanied the Foundation Cross from Mission San Jose to the Cathedral. The Foundation Cross, made by local indigenous Catholics and Franciscans at the end of the 18th century, was blessed by Bishop Barber as the Oakland Diocese’s Holy Cross.
The Mission of San Jose is the earliest site of Catholic activity in what is now the Oakland Diocese. “So this is the very first sign and symbol of the holy Catholic faith in our diocese, going back to 1797,” Bishop Barber explained, “around which the mission would grow with more than 2,000 baptized in sight of this Cross -- and in turn all the 84 parishes and hundreds of thousands of Catholics in the next 228 years.”Bishop Barber and other clergy venerate the Cross during the Jubilee Mass at Cathedral of Christ the Light on Jan. 19, 2025.
Pope Francis' request of all dioceses around the world to designate a Holy Cross reminds us “the Cross is the sign of infinite Love,” Bishop Barber said.
“We participate in the salvific power of the Cross by being baptized,” he explained. “Through being baptized into the death of Jesus, we are also baptized into His resurrection. That's the joyful part!”
For centuries a feature of holy year celebrations has been the indulgence, which the church describes as a remission of the temporal punishment a person is due for their sins.
“Every sin ‘leaves its mark'” even after a person has received forgiveness and absolution through the sacrament of reconciliation, Pope Francis wrote in the document proclaiming the Holy Year. “Sin has consequences, not only outwardly in the effects of the wrong we do, but also inwardly, inasmuch as ‘every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death, in the state called Purgatory,'” he wrote, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The norms for receiving an indulgence during the Holy Year were signed by Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the new head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican court dealing with matters of conscience and with the granting of indulgences.
Bishop Barber blesses a child at the Jubilee Mass, Jan. 19, 2025.The basic conditions, he wrote, are that: a person is “moved by a spirit of charity,” is “purified through the sacrament of penance and refreshed by Holy Communion” and prays for the pope.
Along with a pilgrimage, a work of mercy or an act of penance, a Catholic “will be able to obtain from the treasury of the Church a plenary indulgence, with remission and forgiveness of all their sins, which can be applied in suffrage to the souls in Purgatory.”
While a pilgrimage to the Holy Cross at the Cathedral will fulfill the requirements, there are also sites designated in Rome and the Holy Land.
People who cannot leave their residence — “especially cloistered nuns and monks, but also the elderly, the sick, prisoners and those who, through their work in hospitals or other care facilities, provide continuous service to the sick” — can spiritually join a pilgrimage and receive the indulgence, according to the norms.
Visiting the sick or a prisoner, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked or welcoming a migrant, “in a sense making a pilgrimage to Christ present in them,” can be another way to receive the indulgence, the cardinal said, adding that an indulgence could be obtained each day from such acts of mercy.
“The Jubilee Plenary Indulgence can also be obtained through initiatives that put into practice, in a concrete and generous way, the spirit of penance which is, in a sense, the soul of the Jubilee,” he wrote, highlighting in particular abstaining on Fridays from “futile distractions” like social media or from “superfluous consumption” by not eating meat.
“Supporting works of a religious or social nature, especially in support of the defense and protection of life in all its phases,” helping a young person in difficulty or a recently-arrived migrant or immigrant — anything involving “dedicating a reasonable portion of one’s free time to voluntary activities that are of service to the community or to other similar forms of personal commitment” also are paths toward an indulgence, he said.
Jubilee Mass attendees receive communion.
This article includes content from Catholic News Service.