The article by Fr. Andrzej S. Wodka, C.Ss.R. published in the Alphonsian Academy Blog
This post begins a series on the keywords of the Jubilee 2025, conceived in a dialogic form: a first intervention by a professor of the Alfonsiana Academy will be followed by a second contribution written by a student.
Jubilee: the event and its rite
The best-known rite of the Christian Jubilee, celebrated every 25 years, is the opening of the Holy Door. It symbolically expresses the concept that, during the Jubilee, the faithful are offered an “extraordinary path” toward salvation.
The biblical tradition instead links the “Jubilee” to the sound of the horn which, in turn, originates from the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22:1-18). Isaac was saved from being sacrificed and in his place, Abraham sacrificed a ram that had become entangled by its horns in a bush on the mountain. Associated with this event, the sound of the horn has a double function. The first is to remind God of Abraham’s faith and the salvation of Isaac and all his descendants. In the second, the sound of the horn must awaken the attention of Abraham’s children to the moment of grace that is beginning to take place, such as the liberation “for all the earth.”
In Christian tradition, the ram that is sacrificed in place of Isaac represents the Lamb of God, “he who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29-34), Jesus Christ, sacrificed for humanity to grant universal salvation to all.
Biblical Roots of the Jubilee
The word “jubilee” comes from the Hebrew term yobel, which denotes the ram’s horn. This horn, used as a trumpet, with its particular sound indicated to all Jews the beginning of the jubilee year. The book of Leviticus, with its “code of holiness,” is the primary source for the celebrations of the jubilee year. In this first post, dedicated to the Jubilee 2025 that opens in a few days, it is Leviticus that sheds the first light on the event, considered sacred for millennia in the various religious traditions:
«You shall count seven sabbaths of years, that is, seven times seven years; the seven sabbaths of years shall make forty-nine years. On the tenth day of the seventh month, you shall sound the trumpet (shophar – שׁוֹפָר); on the Day of Atonement, you shall sound the trumpet throughout all the land. You shall hallow the fiftieth year, and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee (yobel – יוֹבֵל) for you; each of you shall return to his property and to his family» (Lev 25,8-10).
Liberation and universal consolation
Faith leads the entire culture of Israel to live the primacy of the relationship with God in time, in work, in relationships. All the realities that involve people, the tools and means of living, cannot succumb to the endless selfishness and insatiable careerism of men, especially those who already enjoy various privileges in life (power, resources, support networks).
Animated by revealed faith, believers cannot tolerate the various forms of slavery (often for life), also practiced among other peoples. Similarly, it is not acceptable that a family be deprived forever of its land (due to indebtedness or poverty), since the land belongs to God and is a gift to man.
The divine laws of Leviticus therefore intervene to promote justice and hope. They may seem unrealistic, given the temporal distance between the jubilee years and the difficult practicability of the provisions. However, the orientation is clear and intense. They vigorously question, challenge and urge believers to welcome the gift and to promote a culture of liberation that translates into the “consolation” of the people and the land.
The definitive Jubilee consolation will be realized in Jesus of Nazareth. It is in the relationship with him, the true Lamb of God, that it becomes possible to experience the “rest” and “refreshment” of the Jubilee, now permanently open: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Mt 11:28-30).
