Pope Francis has asked all the people of God to prepare for the 2025 Jubilee.
Let us begin, then, with its solemn opening. Many of us surely have images before our eyes of the years when the Pope opened the Holy Door. But what is the Holy Door?

The Holy Door

It is the characteristic sign of the Jubilee: by passing through it, every member of the faithful can obtain a plenary indulgence for all sins.
The opening and closing of a basilica's Holy Door mark the beginning and conclusion of the Holy Year.
The most famous is the one at Saint Peter's, followed by those of Rome's three major basilicas, Saint John Lateran, Saint Paul Outside the Walls, and Saint Mary Major.

Holy Doors around the world

However, there are also other Holy Doors around the world, including the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L'Aquila, the basilica-cathedral of Notre-Dame de Québec, the cathedral of Atri (Teramo), and the Holy Door in New Delhi.
During the Extraordinary Jubilee of 2015, Pope Francis allowed the Holy Door to be opened in cathedral churches as well and authorized dioceses to establish Holy Doors.
Will he do the same for the 2025 Jubilee?
Keep following us: we will keep you updated on the Pope's decisions so you will know whether there will also be Holy Doors in your dioceses. 

Why does the Jubilee begin with the opening of a door?

The door symbolizes a movement from outside to inside, from closed to open. It points to a passage, the passage that every person is called to make from sin to grace.
It is Jesus himself who says: «I am the door» (Jn 10:7), so crossing the Holy Door means passing through Jesus and being welcomed by his embrace of mercy.

The Holy Door is no longer walled up

In ancient times, the Holy Door was walled up at the end of the Jubilee. Thus, on the day the Jubilee began, the Pope held a small hammer and struck the Door's wall three times before the wall was demolished. The last walled-up door was that of the 1975 Jubilee. In 2000, Saint John Paul II risked being struck by falling debris while the builders were opening it; he therefore decided that from then on the Holy Doors would simply be closed at the end of the Jubilee and then reopened in the following Holy Year.

While waiting to cross the Holy Door, let us open the door of our hearts

The symbolic dimension of the door, the time we have to prepare for the Jubilee, and the motto that Pope Francis chose for the Jubilee Pilgrims of Hope are tools, aids, prompts, and opportunities to look within ourselves and cross those inner doors that we have walled up for fear of suffering.

Let us look to the Lord Jesus, who tells us: «I am the door», and let us have faith: beyond every walled-up door of the heart, in reality, there is not darkness and death but Him, who has always been waiting to embrace us and heal our wounds.

Begin preparing for the 2025 Jubilee by reading the Council Notebooks,
commissioned by Pope Francis and produced by the Dicastery for Evangelization in collaboration with Shalom Publishing House