Welcome Bishop Martin Ashe – Jubilee 2025 at Holy Trinity: Bishop Martin Ashe, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, will celebrate Mass at Holy Trinity Church, Queenscliff, on Sunday 2nd March at 11:00am to launch the Jubilee Year for pilgrims to visit during Jubilee Year; to experience God’s compassion and love through prayers and pilgrimage. All are welcome to join us for Mass and hospitality.
WHAT DOES A JUBLIEE YEAR MEAN?
A young Kansas girl who dreams of a better life ‘over the rainbow’ is caught in the eye of a tornado and lands in the fantasy world of OZ.
An old man gets out of his wheelchair and opens a door that has been shut for fifty years.
Lucy, in the story the Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe by C.S Lewis, walks through a wardrobe into a new story that is old as the Gospels.
Alice follows a rabbit in a blue coat down a rabbit hole to a wonderland of dreams where she is reunited with her friends who make her realise her true identity.
Open the door… to love, to possibilities… to forgiveness… to a new life all use the common metaphor of a door. Are brides still carried over the threshold by the groom?
The old man who gets out of his wheelchair is of course, Pope Francis and the door is the Holy Door that brings the year of jubilee.
What does a Jubilee Year mean?
As we know the Sabbath was the seventh day of the week when God had a rest. In Scripture seven is the perfect number.
In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, God speaks to Moses about a new idea called Jubilee. Jubilee is not only for humans but for all the farm and wild animals, climate systems, oceans and mountains enjoy a fallow of rest.
Rather like a Gap Year for a young person, Jubilee is a taste of freedom, of doing things differently. For example, in the Old Testament mortgages were cancelled, people could choose not to work for a year, everyone returned to their home country and reconnected, crime rate reduced, and people did not cheat one another.
Jubilee means Seven years multiplied by seven years equalling forty-nine years. The next year is the fiftieth year, named as a year of Jubilee.
In the church today a jubilee year has at least three characteristics.
- It is more about recreation (re- create) than our work.
- It is innovative and fun.
- It is for the whole world.
HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, QUEENSCLIFF, A PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE FOR JUBILEE YEAR 2025
On 24 December 2024, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica to inaugurate the Jubilee Year of Hope for the Universal Church – a special time of prayer, reconciliation, pilgrimage, and renewal.
This Jubilee year of grace will give the faithful an additional opportunity to experience God’s compassion and love through prayers and pilgrimage.
Holy Trinity Church, in Queenscliff, has been nominated by Archbishop Peter A Comensoli as a Pilgrim Place for the need of faithful in our region, Bellarine Peninsula and the greater of Geelong, to visit and pray during the Jubilee year.
During this year, pilgrims visit and pray in Holy Trinity Church, either individuals or groups, could be granted the grace of the Jubilee Indulgence.
JUBILEE YEAR 2025
‘Hope does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5)
The Holy Father has called the universal Church to this special Jubilee year, a year of hope, a time of prayer, pilgrimage, and renewal.
This time of grace will give the faithful an occasion to experience God’s mercy through sacramental repentance and spiritual rebirth.
In anticipation of Jubilee 2025, the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne has designated 13 churches and shrines for pilgrims to visit and pray during the Jubilee year.
The designated pilgrim places are:
- St Patrick’s Cathedral, East Melbourne
- St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne
- St Mary MacKillop, Keilor Downs
- St Luke’s, Lalor
- St Mary Magdalene’s, Trentham
- Polish Marian Shrine, Aberfeldie/Essendon
- St Dominic’s, Camberwell East
- St Francis Xavier, Mansfield
- Sacred Heart, Croydon
- Divine Mercy Shrine, Keysborough
- Our Lady of Lavang, Keysborough
- St Patrick’s, Mentone
- St Macartan’s, Mornington