Dear Sisters, dear brethren, If only it were yesterday! Now I am not evoking a spirit of nostalgia, though it can be easy enough to do just that, at least for some of us, but rather I am speaking literally: if only it were yesterday because the day of the month and the first Mass reading were perfectly devised for what I want to say today.
Beginning then from the first reading from the Book of Leviticus; this book, the third of the Old Testament, is a handbook for ritual and worship. Yesterday we heard the description of the celebration of the Jubilee year: its calculation and the duties the people had to fulfil during it. In the first place, as I said once before when speaking about our own Jubilee, this took place every fiftieth year, being seven times seven years, or forty nine, plus one extra for superabundance. It is the same way in which we calculate Eastertide, only we do so in weeks rather than years, but the numbers are the same: seven times seven weeks gives forty-nine days, then one extra for superabundance is the fiftieth, for which the Greek word is Pentecost. Hence the importance of Pentecost in the scheme of Eastertide, a kind of jubilee at the end of the Easter season.
And the fiftieth year of which Leviticus spoke, the jubilee, was indeed a special and great event. It was treated like the sabbath day: a day free from all worldly tasks – so, too, the jubilee year was declared sacred and dedicated to God and to justice. It was a time to celebrate the dignity God had given the children of Israel. It was, in other words, a ‘great reset’, a new beginning.
In the year 1300 A.D., Pope Boniface VIII celebrated the first Christian jubilee, also dedicated to God in a special way. It was at first intended, like the Jewish jubilee, to take place every fifty years, and to be an occasion of graces given more abundantly than at other times; especially the graces of remission of sins and of all debt owed for sins committed.
In order to gain the graces of extra remission of past sins, the Christian people were instructed to make a pilgrimage to Rome, so as to obtain there in great basilicas the graces poured out more abundantly than at any other time. Such was the enthusiasm with which the faithful took advantage of this great offer of mercy, that the Popes decided the jubilees should not be so far apart as fifty years, to allow more people to take part. So they decided to celebrate a jubilee halfway between every fifty years, that is, every twenty five years.
That is why the Church is celebrating a jubilee year this year. The last one was the one called by Pope John Paul II, the ‘Great Jubilee of the 3rd Millennium’, celebrated in the year 2000 and so we are now celebrating another jubilee halfway towards 2050. We may well not have been around in 2000, and we may well not be around in 2050, so we have been given this opportunity to take advantage of the graces offered not just for the remission of our sins, but also for the remission of all we have to undergo for all our sins, even those already forgiven in the sacrament of Penance and reconciliation. This means that whatever remission we receive during this year of grace is so much less that we will have to undergo in purification at the end of our earthly lives in Purgatory.
So much then for the Holy Year, now for yesterday. Yesterday was August 2nd, and the occasion of the Indulgence granted by the Pope to St Francis of Assisi in 1216, many years before the establishment of the Jubilee in 1300. But the idea is the same as the jubilee, and as any indulgence. It is a form of prayer made in faith according to the mind and ruling of the Church which in return rewards the faithful person with the gifts of grace from the merits of Christ and the saints.
The St Francis indulgence was from the outset associated with the date of August 2nd because this was the dedication day of the beautiful tiny chapel dedicated to our Lady of the Angels, and known to him and his followers as their ‘little portion’, or in Italian ‘Porziuncola’, because it had been granted to him for his own use. It was there that he eventually chose to die in 1226.
The pope, at Francis’s request, gave an indulgence, like that for the jubilee we have just been thinking about, to all who visited the Porziuncola chapel on the dedication day each year. But then, in the same way that the jubilee was extended from every 50 to every 25 years to make it easier for people to avail themselves of it, so too the terms of gaining the Porziuncola indulgence were gradually extended. First, the indulgence could be gained in any Franciscan church, then in any cathedral, and finally in any parish church as is still the case today. But it is still firmly restricted to the 2nd August.
However, even if you missed that one yesterday, don’t forget that you can still gain the holy Year indulgence for the remainder of this Holy Year, and whereas this was originally only granted to those who visited Rome, now it is possible to gain it in other places nominated by the local bishop of each diocese. Here in Wolverhampton we are highly blessed, for the Archbishop has nominated St Michael’s church on Coalway Road as the local shrine church for the gaining of the indulgence, on account of the forthcoming canonization of the parish patron, Bl Carlo Acutis.
The conditions for gaining the indulgence are clearly laid out on a sheet prepared by Fr Mark, the Parish Priest. They are available in the foyer. So I won’t go through them all in detail. But I do urge you to take advantage. Think of this: our distant ancestors would have had to make a long and perilous journey to Rome to gain what we only have to go a few hundred yards to obtain.
Is it worth it? Aren’t indulgences a thing of the past? Weren’t they proved false by Luther? Well, first up: it most certainly is worth it. The Apostles were given the power to loose and bind on earth and in heaven by none other than Christ Himself. Indulgences are one of the ways in which the Pope and bishops fulfil that role and responsibility on our behalf to this day. Luther thought that there was no such thing as purgatory because he couldn’t find it in the Bible. But he thought it was only about forgiveness of sins. It’s not. Forgiveness is given in the sacraments, but purgatory is about restitution and restoration. We have to make restitution for all the sins we have committed, even those that have been forgiven. That is true in everyday life as well. If anyone steals something, they need not only to be forgiven but to give back what was stolen. For some sins, like deeds, words or thoughts that cannot be undone, restitution will be something else that compensates for the sin, an act of penance. If we don’t make such acts of restitution in this life, we must do so in the next. Indulgences enable us to make restitution for past sins. But indulgences have yet another vital effect; they also help us to grow in holiness. It is never just about paying a debt, like e.g. going to prison; indulgences comprise our prayers and our receiving the sacraments of the Church in a way that opens us up to their power in a wholly special way. By confessing our sins and receiving Holy Communion whilst fulfilling the terms of an indulgence, the power of God’s grace is multiplied in us, so that His holiness may be strengthened in us even more than usually.
That is what we can gain in a Holy Year indulgence, more even than in any other year. The next opportunity may be 25 years away, so we should take this opportunity. So much depends on it. You will be profoundly grateful when you discover at the end of your life that by getting the grace of the indulgences offered by the Church in this life, you have escaped a long and harrowing time in Purgatory, making amends for what you did not make amends for on earth.
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