JUBILEE OF MERCY INDULGENCE

   The Holy Father has asked that special indulgences be available for the Faithful throughout the Year of Mercy (December 8, 2015 — November 20, 2016).

     For those able to make a pilgrimage to one of the Jubilee churches in Rome, that is certainly an option. Otherwise, Cardinal Collins has designated seven churches within the Archdiocese of Toronto as Jubilee Churches, each with a Holy Door of Mercy. Going through one of these Holy Doors is a spiritual journey that shows, as the Holy Father said, "the deep desire for true conversion."

     In addition to passing through a Holy Door, each pilgrim is to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, receive the Holy Eucharist while reflecting on God's great gift of mercy, make a profession of faith (recite either the Apostles' or the Nicene Creed), and pray for the Holy Father and for his intentions (an Our Father and a Hail Mary are recommended).

     For those who are elderly, confined and the ill, Pope Francis said that they may obtain the indulgence by "living with faith and joyful hope this moment of trial" and by receiving the Eucharist or by attending Mass and community prayer, "even through the various means of communication" (for instance, a Mass offered on television). For those in prison, they may obtain the indulgence in their prison chapels.

     Indulgences may be obtained for the dead by the carrying out of these same acts by the Faithful with the intention of offering the indulgence for someone who is deceased.

     And finally, for all Catholics, this jubilee indulgence may also be obtained when a member of the Faithful personally performs a spiritual or corporal work of mercy.

Designated churches for the Jubilee with a Holy Door of Mercy:

  St. Paul's Basilica Power Street, Toronto

  St. Patrick's Parish 131 McCaul Street, Toronto

  Merciful Redeemer Parish 2775 Erin Centre Blvd., Mississauga 

  St. Anthony of Padua Parish 940 North Park Drive, Bramalea

  St. Patrick's Parish 11873 The Gore Road, Brampton

  St. Theresa's Parish 2559 Kingston Road, Scarborough

  The Martyrs' Shrine 16163 Highway 12 West, Midland

CHRIST THE KING Pope Pius XI established the feast of Christ the King

– The pope wrote in affirmation of the Social kingship of Christ:

     If we ponder this matter more deeply, we cannot but see that the title and the power of King belongs to Christ as man in the strict and proper sense too. For it is only as man that he may be said to have received from the Father “power and glory and a kingdom,” since the Word of God, as consubstantial with the Father, has all things in common with him, and therefore has necessarily supreme and absolute dominion over all things created.

     Supreme and absolute dominion over all things created.” It wouldn’t be a daring wager to say that nearly every Christian alive today would agree that Christ’s dominion over nature, over creatures, and the universe itself is absolute. But this statement finds not a few objectors when applied to the civic sphere. For if Christ is indeed a king — The King of Kings — then surely, every nation on earth must owe Him homage.

     When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. Our Lord’s regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen’s duty of obedience. It is for this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands, and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not meet that men redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men.

“You are bought with a price; be not made the bond-slaves of men.”

 If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. 

     The result will be a stable peace and tranquility, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the kingdom of Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least their bitterness will be diminished.

~ (From the Encyclical Letter Quas Primas by Pope Pius XI)

Excerpts from BULL OF INDICTION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s on 11 April, 2015

by Pope Francis

     The Holy Year will open on 8 December 2015, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. This liturgical feast day recalls God’s action from the very beginning of the history of mankind. After the sin of Adam and Eve, God did not wish to leave humanity alone in the throes of evil. And so he turned his gaze to Mary, holy and immaculate in love (cf. Eph 1:4), choosing her to be the Mother of man’s Redeemer. When faced with the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of mercy. Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive.

     I will have the joy of opening the Holy Door on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. On that day, the Holy Door will become a Door of Mercy through which anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons, and instills hope. 

     On the following Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, the Holy Door of the Cathedral of Rome – that is, the Basilica of Saint John Lateran – will be opened. In the following weeks, the Holy Doors of the other Papal Basilicas will be opened. On the same Sunday, I will announce that in every local church, at the cathedral – the mother church of the faithful in any particular area – or, alternatively, at the co-cathedral or another church of special significance, a Door of Mercy will be opened for the duration of the Holy Year. At the discretion of the local ordinary, a similar door may be opened at any shrine frequented by large groups of pilgrims, since visits to these holy sites are so often grace-filled moments, as people discover a path to conversion. Every Particular Church, therefore, will be directly involved in living out this Holy Year as an extraordinary moment of grace and spiritual renewal. Thus the Jubilee will be celebrated both in Rome and in the Particular Churches as a visible sign of the Church’s universal communion.

On the Jubilee of Mercy

     On March 13, 2015, Pope Francis announced the celebration of an "extraordinary Holy Year". This "Jubilee of Mercy" will commence with the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, 2015, and will conclude on November 20, 2016 with the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. At the start of the new year, the Holy Father had stated: "This is the time of mercy. It is important that the lay faithful live it and bring it into different social environments. Go forth!"

     The Jubilee announcement had been made on the second anniversary of the election of Pope Francis, during his homily for the penitential liturgy with which the Holy Father opened the "24 Hours for the Lord". This initiative, proposed by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, promotes throughout the world the opening of churches for an extended period of time for the purpose of inviting people to the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The theme for this year has been taken from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, "God rich in mercy".

     The opening of this next Jubilee will take place on the fiftieth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. This is of great significance, for it impels the Church to continue the work begun at Vatican II.

     In the ancient Hebrew tradition, the Jubilee Year, which was celebrated every 50 years, was meant to restore equality among all of the children of Israel, offering new possibilities to families which had lost their property and even their personal freedom. In addition, the Jubilee Year was a reminder to the rich that a time would come when their Israelite slaves would once again become their equals and would be able to reclaim their rights. "Justice, according to the Law of Israel, consisted above all in the protection of the weak" (St. John Paul II, Tertio millenio adveniente 13).