The Jubilee Year is a time to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation.
The 2025 Jubilee, which has the theme of “Pilgrims of Hope” will be a year of hope and trust for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased threats to the climate.
Intended as a time of conversion and emphasis on God’s mercy and forgiveness of sins, Jubilees begin with the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica. Holy Doors at each of the four papal basilicas in Rome are destination points for pilgrims, who pass through seeking special graces.
In preparing spiritually for the 2025 Jubilee, Pope Francis has asked Catholics to:
(information from The Catholic Church, Bishops Conference of England and Wales)
At the beginning of this Jubilee Year 2025, our whole school participated in an assembly followed by a day of activities centred around the theme 'Pilgrims of Hope',
Part of this day included rewriting the words to our morning and end of day school prayers. Every class had a go and the two prayers above are a combination of efforts from across the year groups. While it took us a little bit of time to get used to the new words, it really made us focus on the importance of what we are saying in our prayers.
Other activities included sharing our hopes for next year and 25 years' time, researching Catholic pilgrimages around the world, exploring and designing holy doors and sharing what we want to achieve during this Jubilee Year for ourselves and our school community. We then wrote these hopes onto footprints which are now displayed around our school corridors.
We hope you enjoy reading the prayers as much as we enjoy saying them.
The Rosary is a meditative prayer that reflects upon the life, ministry, and death of Jesus and also on His Blessed Mother. As we repeat the familiar prayers, we allow our minds to think about the lives of Jesus and Mary here on earth – a mystery.
There are four parts to the rosary, known as ‘mysteries’:
For each set of mysteries, we are introduced to five different elements or ‘snapshots’ of the lives of Jesus and Mary. Each snapshot taken from Scripture is an opportunity to reflect and pray. To respond, we pray a set of prayers, which together with the reflection is called a ‘decade’. The prayers we say as part of this set begin with one Our Father, followed by ten Hail Marys and one Glory Be to finish. We use the beads of the Rosary to keep track of our prayers!