Faithful of the Diocese of St. Cloud braved the wind and heavy snow Dec. 28 to celebrate the closing Mass of the Jubilee Year of Hope 2025 at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
In May, 2024, Pope Francis proclaimed a holy year, Jubilee 2025, in the papal bull “Spes Non Confundit,” which means “Hope does not disappoint.”
A jubilee year, also known as a holy year, is ordinarily held every 25 years as a time of repentance and mercy. It includes pilgrimages, especially to Rome. Over the course of the year, millions of pilgrims visited Rome to walk through Holy Doors designated at the city’s four major basilicas: St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, and St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
The holy year opened in the diocese Dec. 29, 2024 with a Mass celebrated by Father Scott Pogatchnik, vicar general and rector of the cathedral, so it was fitting that he presided at the closing Mass as well.
“It’s a miracle and a grace of God that you’re here,” Father Pogatchnik said to those gathered during his homily. “God’s hope enters the world not through comfort, but through a deepened trust. That’s why I think maybe it’s fitting that we have a night like tonight as we conclude this jubilee year of hope,” he continued. “Pope Francis gave this year to us with a very simple theme, just four words, hope does not disappoint, taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.”
Father Pogatchnik talked about how Pope Francis prayed for us to have hope, not just when things are good, but in the midst of uncertainty, too.
“We are not ending a year of hope but rather meditating on the fruit that we gathered,” he said. “Over most of 2025 the church asked us to live as pilgrims of hope, to move and to pray, to practice mercy, to allow Christ to enter us in ways that will stretch us.”
“Some traveled to shrines, some stayed close to home, some rediscovered the gift of confession. Others rediscovered prayer or their neighbors in new ways. Some simply learned how to endure without allowing their heart to harden,” he said. “The question tonight is not what did we do, but more what can we carry forward?”
To celebrate the extraordinary year, the diocese’s millennium cross was refurbished to be used in the opening Mass and was displayed in the sanctuary of the cathedral all year. At the end of the closing Mass, the cross was moved to its permanent place near the tabernacle. Read the story of the millennium cross here.
Pictured above: The jubilee cross is processed out after a Mass celebrating the closing of the Jubilee Year Dec. 28 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in St. Cloud. (Dianne Towalski / The Central Minnesota Catholic)
