2024 – The Year of Prayer
After the year dedicated to reflection on the documents and the study of the fruits of the Second Vatican Council in 2023, Pope Francis has asked that 2024 be marked as a Year of Prayer. The Holy Father announced its launch on Sunday 21 January 2024, on the fifth annual celebration of the ‘Sunday of the Word of God’. Previously, in a letter written on 11 February 2022, addressed to the Pro-prefect, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, to entrust the organization of the Jubilee to the Dicastery for Evangelization, the Pope wrote: “From now on I am happy to think that the year preceding the Jubilee event, 2024, will be dedicated to a great ‘symphony’ of prayer. First of all, to recover the desire to be in the presence of the Lord, to listen to him and adore him.” In preparation for the Jubilee, therefore, individual dioceses are invited to promote the centrality of individual and community prayer during this year.
The Dicastery has made some useful resources available to help people to better understand and rediscover the value of prayer. In addition to the 38 catecheses on Prayer that Pope Francis himself presented from 6 May 2020 to 16 June 2021, a series of booklets entitled, “Notes on Prayer” is being published by the Vatican publishing house, Libreria Editrice Vaticana. The eight titles are designed to put the need for a profound relationship with the Lord back at the center of people’s lives, through the many forms of prayer to be found in the rich Catholic tradition of prayer. In addition, a pastoral aid is available online, in a digital version, to help parish communities, families, priests, cloistered nuns and young people to become more aware of the need for daily prayer.
[Vatican Jubilee 2025 Website]
Papal Bull – SPES NON CONFUNDIT (click to read)
BULL OF INDICTION OF THE ORDINARY JUBILEE OF THE YEAR 2025
The Jubilee Logo
The logo shows four stylized figures, representing all of humanity, coming from the four corners of the earth. They embrace each other to indicate the solidarity and fraternity which should unite all peoples. The figure at the front is holding onto the cross. It is not only the sign of the faith which this lead figure embraces, but also of hope, which can never be abandoned, because we are always in need of hope, especially in our moments of greatest need. There are the rough waves under the figures, symbolising the fact that life’s pilgrimage does not always go smoothly in calm waters. Often the circumstances of daily life and events in the wider world require a greater call to hope. That’s why we should pay special attention to the lower part of the cross which has been elongated and turned into the shape of an anchor which is let down into the waves. The anchor is well known as a symbol of hope. In maritime jargon the ‘anchor of hope’ refers to the reserve anchor used by vessels involved in emergency manoeuvres to stabilise the ship during storms. It is worth noting that the image illustrates the pilgrim’s journey not as an individual undertaking, but rather as something communal, marked by an increasing dynamism leading one ever closer to the cross. The cross in the logo is by no means static, but it is also dynamic. It bends down towards humanity, not leaving human beings alone, but stretching out to them to offer the certainty of its presence and the security of hope. At the bottom of the logo is the motto of the 2025 Jubilee Year: Peregrinantes in Spem (Pilgrims in hope), represented in green letters.
TEACH US TO PRAY
The Jubilee Prayer
Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom.
May your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation
of a new heaven and a new earth,
when, with the powers of Evil vanquished,
your glory will shine eternally.
May the grace of the Jubilee
reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope,
a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread
the joy and peace of our Redeemer
throughout the earth.
To you our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever.
Amen