Bishop Mark Davies has opened the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope in two designated “pilgrim churches” in the Diocese of Shrewsbury.

The first opening Mass in the Shrewsbury Cathedral took place on Sunday December 29 just five days after Pope Francis opened the Jubilee, or Holy, Year at St Peter’s Basilica.

The Bishop celebrated a second Mass at St Joseph’s Eucharistic Shrine in Stockport on Sunday January 12.

Both churches are designated as places of pilgrimages in which the faithful might obtain a jubilee indulgence.

A Jubilee Year is celebrated by the Catholic Church every 25 years and offers to the faithful renewed opportunities to seek forgiveness for their sins, conversion of life and reconciliation with their neighbour.

Pope Francis has asked that the Jubilee of 2025 be focused on the virtue of “hope”.

The Jubilee will see tens of millions travel on pilgrimage to Rome or undertake more local pilgrimages to the cathedral or specially designated churches where confessing their sins, receiving Holy Communion and carrying out specific acts of prayer and mercy they seek the indulgence of the Church, a share in the prayer and striving for holiness of the whole Church.

In a pastoral letter to all the parishes and communities of the Diocese, marking the opening of the Holy Year 2025, Bishop Davies described the Jubilee as a “moment of grace” which offers renewed hope as we journey through the 21st Century striving for the one goal of Heaven.

Bishop Davies said: “This hope does not lead us to care less about our present lives or this passing world, rather it leads us to care more, much more! The fact that this world is the way to another, ‘the life of the world to come’, charges the whole of our lives with new purpose.

“Pope Francis gives practical examples of how this supernatural hope opens the door to see our lives and our world anew.

“This, he writes, enables us to untiringly seek peace in a world threatened by war and conflict; to be open to the gift of life in countries witnessing an alarming decline in the birth rate, since the desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters is born of hope; this same hope brings us closer to the sick and the elderly and helps us see in a new light the plight of the poor and most vulnerable, of prisoners, exiles and refugees.

“The hope we have received, insists Pope Francis, leads us to forgive others, for while forgiveness cannot change what happened in the past ‘it can allow us to change the future and live different lives, free of anger’.”

In his homily at St Joseph’s Eucharistic Shrine Church, Bishop Davies reminded the faithful that the word “indulgence” was an ancient word for “generosity”, giving Christians the opportunity to grow in holiness.

The Bishop said that all who come through the doors of St Joseph’s during the Jubilee Year “to confess their sins, to receive Holy Communion, to pray for the intentions of the Pope alongside the intercession for new vocations and for priests may gain the Jubilee indulgence of the Church”.

Please follow this link for more information on the Jubilee Year.