A notice from the Office of the Bishop:

On April 11, 2015, our Holy Father, Pope Francis, issued a bull of indiction, designating Dec. 8, 2015 – Nov. 20, 2016 as a Jubilee Year, a “Holy Year of Mercy” throughout the Catholic Church.  In his announcement, Pope Francis wrote that “in every local church, at the cathedral – the mother church of the faithful in any particular area – or, alternatively, at the co-cathedral or another church of special significance, a Door of Mercy will be opened for the duration of the Holy Year. At the discretion of the local ordinary, a similar door may be opened at any shrine frequented by large groups of pilgrims, since visits to these holy sites are so often grace-filled moments as people discover a path to conversion.”

Later this year, on Sept. 1, 2015, our Holy Father wrote “to all the faithful who, whether in individual Dioceses or as pilgrims to Rome, will experience the grace of the Jubilee. I wish that the Jubilee Indulgence may reach each one as a genuine experience of God’s mercy, which comes to meet each person in the Face of the Father who welcomes and forgives, forgetting completely the sin committed. To experience and obtain the Indulgence, the faithful are called to make a brief pilgrimage to the Holy Door, open in every cathedral or in the churches designated by the diocesan bishop, and in the four papal basilicas in Rome, as a sign of the deep desire for true conversion.”

Jubilee Years (Holy Years) have a scriptural origin in the Old Testament.  Convoked by the Pope, the Catholic Church has celebrated Jubilee Years since the 1300s, ordinarily every 25 or 50 years.  They may be celebrated more frequently when special circumstances prompt them.  Their most prominent features include the opening and closing of a “Holy Door” in prominent cathedrals, basilicas or churches, and pilgrimages to those places of worship to which a plenary indulgence is attached.

In accordance with the wishes of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., has, by official decree, designated the following churches in the Diocese of Trenton as places of pilgrimage for the clergy, religious and faithful of the Diocese, with a “Holy Door of Mercy” offering a Jubilee Plenary Indulgence:

St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral, Trenton (Diocese of Trenton)

St. Katharine Drexel (St. Paul), Burlington (Burlington County)

St. Mary, Middletown (Monmouth County)

St. Peter, Point Pleasant Beach  (Ocean County)

St. Mary, Colts Neck (Monmouth County)

St. Barnabas, Bayville (Ocean County)

Divine Mercy (Holy Cross), Trenton (Mercer County)

St. Gregory the Great, Hamilton Square (Mercer County)

Holy Cross, Rumson (Monmouth County)

St. George, Titusville (Mercer County)

St. Aloysius, Jackson (Ocean County)

St. Robert Bellarmine, Freehold (Monmouth County)

St. Catherine, Middletown (Monmouth County)

The “Holy Doors of Mercy” shall be opened Dec. 13, 2015 through Nov. 20, 2016.  All Catholics of the Diocese of Trenton who visit one of these churches and its Holy Door of Mercy on pilgrimage and who fulfill the conditions ordinarily attached to an indulgence (remission of temporal punishment for sins already forgiven, see canon 992) shall, with the proper intention and disposition, receive the plenary Jubilee Indulgence available during the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.  Those conditions are:

1.  recipient must be a baptized Catholic in the state of grace (free from mortal sin) at time of indulgenced work (pilgrimage);

2.  recipient must internally express a detachment from and rejection of sin at time of indulgenced work (pilgrimage);

3.  recipient must make a sacramental confession within 20 days of indulgenced work (pilgrimage), preferably but not required on the day itself;

4.  recipient must receive Holy Communion within 20 days of indulgenced work (pilgrimage), preferably but not required on the day itself;

5.  recipient must pray for the intention of the Holy Father at the time of the indulgenced work (pilgrimage), usually the “Profession of Faith (from Mass),” one “Our Father,” one “Hail Mary” and one “Glory be to the Father” or other suitable prayers.

The Jubilee Plenary Indulgence may be obtained for the living or the dead and will be available only one time daily.  Parish pilgrimages to churches with the Holy Door of Mercy can be arranged in consultation with the pastors of the parishes concerned.  More will be written about the Holy Year of Mercy in the coming weeks.