In line with the directive of the Holy Father, Pope Francis; who had on Christmas Eve opened the door of the Basilica to signal the commencement of the Jubilee Year 2025, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Ibadan, Most Rev. Dr. Gabriel ‘Leke Abegunrin on Sunday, 29th December, 2024 inaugurated the Jubilee Year of Hope 2025 at St. Mary Catholic Cathedral, Oke-Padi, Ibadan.

The event had in attendance the Archbishop Emeritus of Ibadan, Most Rev. Dr. Felix Alaba Job, Priests, Religious and Lay Faithful in their different organizations and uniforms.

The celebration started in front of the Marian Grotto of St. Mary Cathedral where the Archbishop led the opening prayer and the Pastoral Secretary, V. Rev. Fr. Richard Omolade read from the Papal Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee Year of Hope after which the Archbishop led all in pilgrimage into the Cathedral for other activities and Holy Mass to signal the commencement of the Jubilee Year of Hope in the Archdiocese.

There was blessing of Holy water, used for the renewal of baptismal promises, readings of the scripture and homily, which was read by the Pastoral Secretary, V. Rev. Fr. Richard Omolade on behalf of the Archbishop. In the written homily, the Archbishop analyzed thus: “On 9 May, the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year 2024, the twelfth of his Pontificate, Pope Francis issued the BULL OF INDICTION OF THE ORDINARY JUBILEE OF THE YEAR 2025, with the title SPES NON CONFUNDIT. “Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5).

“On 24th December, 2024, the Holy Father officially declared open the Jubilee of Hope, 2025 with the Motto, PILGRIMS OF HOPE. Hope is also the central message of the Jubilee that, in accordance with an ancient tradition, the Pope proclaims every twenty-five years. The Holy Father said in that document, “My thoughts turn to all those pilgrims of hope who will travel to Rome in order to experience the Holy Year and to all those others who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches. For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the “door” (cf. Jn 10:7.9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as “our hope” (1 Tim 1:1).”

 

The Holy Father said:

“The Holy Year of 2025 is itself in continuity with preceding celebrations of grace. In the last Ordinary Jubilee, we crossed the threshold of two millennia from the birth of Jesus Christ. Then, on 13 March 2015, I proclaimed an Extraordinary Jubilee for the sake of making known and encouraging an encounter with the “merciful face of God”, the core message of the Gospel for every man and woman of every time and place. 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 that awakens in hearts the sure hope of salvation in Christ. (SNC 6)

Opening of the Holy Door.

I welcome you to our Cathedral as I also declare open the Jubilee Year of Hope today as the Holy Father directed. On the eve of Christmas, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter Basilica and ushered us into the celebration of the Jubilee Year of Hope. The opening of the Holy door and pilgrimages to designated shrines and places are central to our Jubilee, because the Holy Father wants us to remember that we are pilgrims on earth and as pilgrims, we live in hope of what God has promised. We must therefore contribute to giving people hope instead of dashing their hope.

In Catholic tradition, the Holy Door represents the passage to salvation -- the path to a new life and also eternal life, which was opened to humanity by Jesus. Walking through a holy door is a simple gesture, living as people with hope is much more demanding and should be a conscious act for each of us.  The tradition goes back more than 600 years. Pope Martin V, in 1423, opened the Holy Door in the Basilica of St. John Lateran -- the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome -- for the first time for a jubilee. Later, Pope Alexander VI had Holy Doors opened at the four main Basilicas in Rome for the Holy Year of 1500. While only pilgrims to the eternal city of Rome will be able to pass through holy doors, the effect the act convokes can still be experienced by all of us. The act of passing through a door is very symbolic. This singular act reminds us that the door of God is always open for all who would approach.  The door of mercy we know is never closed to anyone except the one who has rejected God by personal act.  Opening the Holy door is thus a powerful sign to all of us to look the Lord for our hope and salvation. No wonder the Jubilee is specially directed to PRISONERS who are called to keep hope alive and look to the future with hope, to the ELDERLY who must look to the future with confidence without regrets for the past they are no longer able to change, to the YOUNG with a long future ahead of them, so they are called to pass through with confidence and grace, knowing that they are not alone but that the Lord walks with them. To PRIESTS who are called to be merchants of hope, bringing hope to all, and helping people to discover the joy of life.  To the rest of us, Catholics, as the Holy Father said: May the Christian community always be prepared to defend the rights of those who are most vulnerable, opening wide its doors to welcome them, lest anyone ever be robbed of the hope of a better future. May the Lord’s words in the great parable of the Last Judgement always find an echo in our hearts: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” for “just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me” (SNC 13)

The Holy Father will open many other Holy doors in January as a gesture of hope to the people of the World. In In "Spes Non Confundit" ("Hope Does Not Disappoint"), the Papal bull officially proclaiming the Holy Year, Pope Francis wrote that "in order to offer prisoners a concrete sign of closeness, I would myself like to open a Holy Door in a prison, as a sign inviting prisoners to look to the future with hope and a renewed sense of confidence."

Pilgrimage

The Jubilee also calls for us to set out on a journey and to cross boundaries. When we travel, we do not only change place physically, but we also change ourselves. Hence, it is important to prepare ourselves well, to plan the route, and learn about the destination. In this sense, the Jubilee pilgrimage begins before the start of the journey itself: The starting point is the decision to set out. The etymology of the word “pilgrimage” is quite telling and has undergone little change in meaning over the years. The word comes from the Latin “per ager,” meaning "across the fields," or perhaps from “per eger” meaning “border crossing”: Both possible origins point to the distinctive aspect of undertaking a journey.

In the Bible, Abraham is described as a person on a journey: “Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house” (Genesis 12:1). With these words Abraham begins his adventure, which ends in the Promised Land, where he is remembered as a “wandering Aramean” (Deuteronomy 26:5). Jesus’ ministry can also be seen as a journey, from Galilee to the Holy City of Jerusalem … “As the time drew near when Jesus would be taken up to heaven, he made up his mind and set out on his way to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51). Christ himself calls His disciples to walk this road, and even today Christians are those who follow him and set out after Him.

The journey takes place gradually: There are various routes to choose from and places to discover; it is made up of particular sets of circumstances, moments of catechesis, sacred rites and liturgies. Along the way our traveling companions enrich us with new ways of understanding things and fresh perspectives. Contemplation of creation is also part of the journey and helps us to realize that care for creation “is an essential expression of our faith in God and our obedience to his will” (Pope Francis, Letter for the Jubilee 2025). A Pilgrimage is an experience of conversion, of transforming one's very being to conform it to the holiness of God. During the pilgrimage, one also shares in the experience of those who, for various reasons, are forced to leave their homelands to seek a better life for themselves and their family.

To fulfil the obligation of embarking on pilgrimages, I hereby declare these shrines as designated centers for Holy pilgrimages for the purpose the celebration of the Jubilee Year of Hope with the theme Pilgrims of Hope. They are:

1.  Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Grotto, the Archdiocesan Grotto at Eleta.
2.  The Marian Grotto at our Cathedral, St. Mary, Oke Padi.
3.  The Marian Grotto at Our Lady Mother of Perpetual Help, Lade.
4.  The National Grotto of the Confraternity of Christian Mothers at Mary Assumpta, Olubadan.
5.  The Marian Grotto at St. Thomas Catholic  Church, Agbowo
6.  The Grotto at St. Gregory, Moniya.
7.  The Grotto at the Schoenstatt Community, Ijokodo
8.  The Grotto at St. Cyprian, Oke-Offa
9.  For those who wish to make a pilgrimage outside Ibadan We have chosen the Marian Grotto at Otan -Ayegbaju, but please liaise with the Chancery so that we can communicate with the pilgrimage center officially.

Indulgences

The Jubilee Indulgence is a concrete manifestation of God's mercy, which goes beyond and transforms the boundaries of human justice.

On Indulgences to be gained, the Apostolic Penitentiary has this to say:

Previously, in the Bull announcing the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015, Pope Francis underlined how the Indulgence acquired "an even more important meaning" in that context (Misericordiae vultus, 22), since God's mercy becomes the "indulgence on the part of the Father who, through the Bride of Christ, his Church, reaches the pardoned sinner and frees him or her from every residue left by the consequences of sin" (ibid.).

Similarly, now the Holy Father declares that the gift of the Indulgence "is a way of discovering the unlimited nature of God’s mercy. Not by chance, for the ancients, the terms ‘mercy’ and ‘indulgence’ were interchangeable, as expressions of the fullness of God’s forgiveness, which knows no bounds" (Spes non confundit, 23). The Indulgence, therefore, is a Jubilee grace.

And so, also during the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, by will of the Supreme Pontiff, this ‘Court of Mercy’, which is responsible for all that concerns the granting and use of indulgences, wishing to encourage the souls of the faithful and nourish the pious desire to obtain the Indulgence seen as a gift of grace specific to each Holy Year, establishes the following indications, so that the faithful may take advantage of the "norms for obtaining and rendering spiritually fruitful the practice of the Jubilee indulgence" (Spes non confundit, 23).

During the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, all others Indulgences previously granted remain in force. All the faithful, who are truly repentant and free from any affection for sin (cf. Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, IV ed., norm. 20, § 1), who are moved by a spirit of charity and who, during the Holy Year, purified through the sacrament of penance and refreshed by Holy Communion, pray for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, 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 in the following ways:

1. Pilgrimages to designated sacred places in Rome and other places.
2.  In other ecclesiastical areas: by visiting the Cathedral or other Church or sacred place designated by the Local Ordinary.
3. Likewise, the faithful can obtain the Jubilee Indulgence if, individually or in a group, they devoutly visit any Jubilee site and there, for a suitable period of time, engage in Eucharistic adoration and meditation, concluding with the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form, and invocations to Mary, the Mother of God, so that in this Holy Year everyone "will come to know the closeness of Mary, the most affectionate of mothers, who never abandons her children" (Spes non confundit, 24).

Furthermore, the Church also recommends that:

“The faithful who are truly repentant of sin but who cannot participate in the various solemn celebrations, pilgrimages and pious visits for serious reasons (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 obtain the Jubilee Indulgence, under the same conditions if, united in spirit with the faithful taking part in person, (especially when the words of the Supreme Pontiff or the Diocesan Bishop are transmitted through the various means of communication), they recite the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any approved form, and other prayers in conformity with the objectives of the Holy Year, in their homes or wherever they are confined (e.g. in the Chapel of the monastery, hospital, nursing home, prison...) offering up their sufferings or the hardships of their lives;”

With joy and happiness for the Jubilee year, the Archbishop led all in a thanksgiving to God while Archbishop Emeritus prayed and blessed all.

Archbishop Abegunrin later expressed his gratitude to all for the large turn-out for the ceremony. “Only one thing, to thank all of you. You have come out impressively and I am happy.” His Grace said.

His Grace thanked the Organizers, Priests, Religious and the Laity, urging that the prayer cards given for the Jubilee Year be used very well in all parishes and homes, to keep the year lively and as well imitate the Holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. His grace further appreciated various liturgical functionaries and appealed that every day when they pray, they should pray for the Priests and Religious.