The 2025 is a jubilee year for us Catholics and the World Day of Peace message for this year offers three social proposals for us within that context. In offering us this message Pope Francis reminds us that “the Jubilee is an event that inspires us to seek to establish the liberating justice of God in our world.” Vatican News describes how this year’s message coincides with the idea of the jubilee.

This year’s message is entitled “Forgive Us Our Debts: Grant Us Your Peace”  underscoring the deep meaning of the Jubilee tradition that reminds us that we are all “in debt” to God, who in His infinite mercy and love forgives our sins and calls upon us to forgive those who trespass against us.

The biblical idea of the jubilee is to set things right in the community. When ancient Israel declares a jubilee the original equity is restored and debts are forgiven. In a sense, the natural law is observed and the community (human and ecological) is given a new start. In the 58th World Day of Peace message Pope Francis invites us to enter into the social meaning of the jubilee by offering the following three proposals of hope with his message.

• To consider “reducing substantially, if not cancelling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations”.
• For a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and for their children.
• To use a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments to establish a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change.

As part of the jubilee community we should pronounce and advocate on these three proposals of hope throughout the year. In promoting this agenda we become disciples of Christ who witness to human dignity, social equity, and ecological sustainability.

The message ends with the following prayer:

Forgive us our trespasses, Lord,
as we forgive those who trespass against us. In this cycle of forgiveness, grant us your peace, the peace that you alone can give to those who let themselves be disarmed in heart, to those who choose in hope to forgive the debts of their brothers and sisters, to those who are unafraid to confess their debt to you, and to those who do not close their ears to the cry of the poor.

Parishes may want to integrate this social message as they spread the idea of the jubilee throughout our Catholic community. This beautiful prayer could also be promoted so that we pray and promote the social agenda of this year’s holy jubilee.