PHOTOS | Hope Lived at Home: Jubilee Year Concludes on the Feast of the Holy Family

Bishop Rodríguez pointed to Jesus, Mary and Joseph as the model for Christian life as he closed the Jubilee Year of Hope.

(Photo by Grant Whitty/Denver Catholic)

By Grant Whitty

As the faithful settled into pews before Mass on the last Sunday of 2025, a seminarian stood waiting at the back of the Cathedral, under the red and yellow canopy of the Cathedral Basilica's umbrellino. 

“I am sure you all know the symbolism behind the umbrellino and bell [formally, the tintinnabulum] present in today’s celebration? If you don't know, neither did I. I had to ask someone,” Bishop Jorge Rodríguez said playfully as he opened his homily on the Feast of the Holy Family. 

While Sunday’s liturgy celebrated a high feast and fell within the Christmas Octave, neither of these festivities prompted the use of the umbrellino and the tintinnabulum in the procession. 

Before Pope Francis passed away, he designated 2025 as the Jubilee Year of Hope. With the 2025 calendar year marking its final days, dioceses around the world were invited by Rome to celebrate a special Mass to formally conclude the Jubilee Year of Hope.

In this context, Bishop Rodríguez explained, the two unique instruments highlighted not only the special occasion but the Cathedral Basilica’s unique connection to Rome.

“Churches are often given the title of basilica after the Holy Father visits. In our case, Pope John Paul II visited our Cathedral during World Youth Day 1993,” the bishop said. “[The umbrellino and bell] are the symbols of a basilica, and when we have a papal ceremony like we do today, for the end of the Jubilee Year, their presence signifies our connection to the papacy, to the Pope.”

Although the Jubilee Year ends in dioceses everywhere this week, the major basilicas in Rome will not end the Jubilee until the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2026. 

(Photos by Grant Whitty/Denver Catholic)

A year ago, Bishop Rodríguez celebrated the opening of the Jubilee Year of Hope on December 29, 2024. The celebration began with a procession from the Cathedral’s nearby Knights of Columbus Hall and ended in the church for Holy Mass. 

“The procession was a very powerful symbol,” the bishop recalled. “It embodied the pilgrimage that we as Universal Church were embarking on. A pilgrimage into the merciful heart of Christ, in whom we find our hope. It was also an invitation to share that hope with our brothers and sisters along the way, especially the poor and needy.”

He then went on to emphasize some of the key elements of this year’s jubilee — most notably, the journey to the theological virtue of hope, by way of mercy. The bishop spoke about the hope and grace that come from receiving and encountering Christ’s mercy in the sacrament of Confession and participating in the Church’s prescribed indulgences for the Jubilee year. 

As the Holy Doors prepare to close, pilgrimages wind down and the Church enters into a more ordinary time, Bishop Rodríguez encouraged contemplation on the Holy Family. 

“Imagine Jesus, Mary and Joseph sharing their meals together. They worked, laughed and prayed together. Even all the trivial things that they partook in as a family, they did in the presence of God. We must live our lives, even amidst apparently insignificant, ordinary moments, knowing that we are always living in the presence of God. He accompanies us in all the joys and sorrows of our lives,” he said.

Bishop Rodríguez closed his homily by looking to another holy family, Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin, as a more contemporary example of holy family life. 

“Louis and Zelie Martin are the first canonized married couple that we know of, who have also raised one of their children up to be a canonized saint, that of St. Therese of the Child Jesus,” he explained. “They are a great example of our calling to holiness. They practiced Christian service in the family, creating day by day an environment of faith and love.”

Drawing from their example and that of the Holy Family, Bishop Rodríguez encouraged those gathered to continue interceding for families.

“Let us pray for families,” the bishop concluded, “that each of them may live constantly in the joy of the presence of God and bring the graces from this Jubilee Year into the next year.”

While Jubilees are typically celebrated every 25 years (Ordinary Jubilees), the Church will celebrate the next Jubilee in approximately seven years, the 2033 Jubilee of Redemption, marking the 2000th anniversary of Christ’s salvific Passion, Death and Resurrection. In preparation for that pivotal celebration, Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila commissioned the Archdiocese’s “Mary at the Foot of the Cross” icon, unveiled in March, and asked that faithful around the archdiocese call on her intercession through a public multi-year novena in his pastoral note, Standing with Mary at the Foot of the Cross.