Understanding the Significance of Forgiveness, Charity, and Sacraments in Jubilee Pilgrimage
This is the classic formulation of the search for God where divine presence is most visibly condensed, in a sanctuary. Humanity has always sought God, but it is God who has preceded us by surpassing the heavens and coming to earth; and then transcending time by making Himself present through the action of the Spirit in the sacramental gesture. That is precisely the point of effective crossing and meeting between human pilgrimage and God’s pilgrimage. The jubilee pilgrimage must be “an exercise of active asceticism, of repentance for human weaknesses, of constant vigilance over one’s fragility, and inner preparation for the reform of the heart”; but ultimately, if it is to be fruitful, it must lead to celebration and liturgical rites, that is, the Sacrament. The Holy Door evokes the Christian’s passage to God through Christ: “I am the door,” Jesus said, “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Passing through that door means confessing that Jesus is Lord, a decision that presupposes the freedom to choose along with the courage to leave something behind, knowing that in doing so one gains divine life, which “Christ Himself enters more deeply into the Church, His Body and His Spouse.”
The Meaning of Indulgence
Indulgence is one of the essential elements of the jubilee event. To understand the meaning of indulgence, we must start from the Sacrament of Penance (or Confession). The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the Sacrament of Penance. The Sacrament of Penance offers the sinner the possibility to convert and recover the grace of justification. By confessing their sins, the believer truly receives forgiveness and can once again participate in the Eucharist, as a sign of restored communion with the Father and His Church. The reconciliation with God that occurs does not exclude the persistence of some consequences of sin, which must be purified. It is in this context that indulgence gains importance, through which the repentant sinner is pardoned for the temporal punishment for sins already forgiven in regard to guilt in the Sacrament of Penance.
The Purification of Memory
The Jubilee necessarily calls for conversion. First and foremost individual, through a serious examination of conscience whereby each person “discovers the distance that separates their actions from the ideal that Christ expects from them.” It also involves a communal or Church-wide examination of conscience, reflecting on its history and discovering “countertestimonies” from many of its children. The Church sincerely asks forgiveness from God and looks to the future with a commitment to greater coherence and clear witness to the Gospel. “It is an act of courage and humility to acknowledge the shortcomings committed by those who have borne and still bear the name of Christian.”
The Sign of Charity and the Memory of the Martyrs
Charity is the most visible and concrete sign of God the Father’s compassion toward all those in need and the poorest. It involves creating a culture of solidarity and changing lifestyles that do not prioritize only earthly possessions, but open the way to new forms of poverty, new forms of slavery (e.g., foreign debt), social marginalization, and to “create models of economy that serve the person.” The memory of martyrs—both yesterday’s martyrs and new martyrs today—is “the most eloquent proof of the truth of faith, which can give a human face even to the most violent deaths and manifests its beauty even in the most atrocious persecutions.”