A jubilee is a special year of remission of sins, debts and universal pardon. In the Book of Leviticus, a jubilee year is mentioned as occurring every 50th year (after 49 years, 7×7, as per Leviticus 25:8) during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.

In Western Christianity, the tradition dates to 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII convoked a holy year, following which ordinary jubilees have generally been celebrated every 25 or 50 years, with additional “extraordinary” jubilees declared depending on the need. Catholic jubilees, particularly in the Latin Church, generally involve a pilgrimage to a sacred site, normally the city of Rome.

The most recent ordinary holy year was the Jubilee Year of Hope, which commenced on 24 December 2024 and ended on 6 January 2026. The present extraordinary holy year is the Jubilee of St. Francis, which commenced on 10 January 2026 and will be concluded on 10 January 2027. It is planned to have an extraordinary jubilee in 2033 to commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In the 20th century, jubilees were held in 1925, 1933 (in commemoration of the 1900th anniversary of the traditional year of Jesus’s death and resurrection), 1950, 1965 (post-Council jubilee), 1975, 1983 (for the Holy Year of the Redemption: the 1950th anniversary of Jesus’s death and resurrection) and 2000.

Pope Pius XII used the occasion of the 1950 Jubilee to declare a new pontifical anthem for the Vatican City. With the encyclical Fulgens corona, he declared the first Marian year or “Little Holy Year” for 1954. Pope John Paul II proclaimed a Marian year in 1987, again four years after the 1983 Jubilee.

Pope John Paul II announced a Great Jubilee for the year 2000 with his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As the Third Millennium Approaches) of 10 November 1994. In this writing, he called for a three-year preparation period leading up to the opening of the Great Jubilee on 24 December 1999. The first year, 1997, was to be dedicated to meditation on Jesus, the second to the Holy Spirit, and the third to God the Father. This Jubilee was especially marked by a simplification of the rites and the requirements for achieving the indulgence, as well as a huge effort to involve other Christians in the celebration.

Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox Church were invited to celebrate the jubilee together with Catholics as a sign of ecumenism. Furthermore, special jubilees were invoked for various groups within the Church, such as children, athletes, politicians, and actors. World Youth Day, celebrated in Rome in August, brought over two million young people together.

The jubilee was closed by the pope on 6 January 2001, by the closing of the holy door of St. Peter’s Basilica and the promulgation of the apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (Upon Entering the New Millennium), which outlined the pope’s vision for the future of the church.

On 13 March 2015, Pope Francis announced a special jubilee on the theme of mercy to be held from 8 December 2015 until 20 November 2016, and formally convoked the holy year through the papal bull of indiction, Misericordiae Vultus (The Face of Mercy), on 11 April 2015.

On 10 January 2026, just 4 days after the close of the 2025 Jubilee, Pope Leo XIV announced a special jubilee to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the Transitus of St. Francis of Assisi, which is being held from 10 January 2026 to 10 January 2027.

A Marian year is a designation given by the Catholic Church to calendar years in which Mary, the mother of Jesus, is to be particularly reverenced and celebrated. Marian years do not follow a set pattern; they may be declared by a bishop for his diocese, or a national conference of bishops for a country.

In Church history, only two international Marian years have been pronounced: by Pope Pius XII in 1954 and by Pope John Paul II in 1987. In both years, Marian devotion, Marian pilgrimages, and Marian meetings were promulgated.

On New Year’s Day 1987, Pope John Paul II initiated an international Marian year, from June 7, 1987 (Pentecost) to August 15, 1988 (the Feast of the Assumption), in preparation for the forthcoming millennium. According to Diarmuid Martin, of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, “The church has become extremely intellectual after the Second Vatican Council, and the Holy Father wants to bring back some of the traditional warmth that has gone out of fashion.”

The Pope published Redemptoris Mater, the longest Marian encyclical ever written by a Pontiff. Addressing Marian belief and Mariology for the beginning of the 21st century, the encyclical served as the “main teaching resource for our spiritual life and pastoral action during the Marian Year.” Bishop Gérard Dionne of Edmundston said, “At a time when there are so many different forms of devotion and theological reflection about Mary that have not been officially approved by the Church, it is important to rely with confidence on the Pope’s authoritative teaching.”

For the beginning of the Marian year, a large copy of the Madonna della Colonna was completed for outside Saint Peter’s Square. Pope John Paul II had been approached by a student who told him that Saint Peter’s Square was cold and incomplete without the portrait of the Blessed Virgin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_year

2033 – 1947 = 86 years
2027 – 1947 = 80 years

2027 – 2033

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