Over 1,500 parishioners gathered with Bishop Alberto Rojas at Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral on December 29, 2024, for the 2025 Jubilee Year opening Mass. Now, after a year full of pilgrimages, conversion of hearts, forgiveness, works of mercy, renewal, and hope, on Dec. 28, the diocese will gather together again for the 2025 Jubilee Year closing Mass at the Cathedral at 4:00 pm.
Fulfilling a central theme of a Jubilee year, pilgrimage, the sea of people, led by Bishop Alberto Rojas and clergy, made a small pilgrimage around the Cathedral campus to officially begin the 2025 Jubilee year in the Diocese of San Bernardino.
“Pope Francis inaugurated this Jubilee Year on Christmas Eve at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican,” Bishop Rojas said in his opening Mass Homily. “In a wheelchair he opened the Jubilee door and invited the whole Church to make a pilgrimage through that door so that we may be leaving behind a dark world of desperation and chaos in order to enter the door, who is Christ, who is our hope and who is our light.”
Throughout the 2025 Jubilee Year, the faithful across the diocese have participated in experiences that helped lead them from a dark world to be “Pilgrims of Hope,” restoring a climate of hope in the community.
Notable Diocesan Jubilee experiences:
- Bishop Rojas and diocesan delegation make a Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome in March to walk through Holy Doors of St. Peter’s Basilica. On that journey Bishop Rojas also received a relic of St. Bernardine of Siena, patron saint of the diocese for the diocese on this pilgrimage.
- Our Lady of Lourdes, Montclair, parishioner, Alfred Shine, Jr., made a pilgrimage to all 28 designated Jubilee parish sites within the diocese. For this remarkable accomplishment, he received a special prize and recognition from the diocese.
- Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral hosted over 20 Vespers with Eucharistic Adoration services to pray for the various Jubilee groups designated by the Vatican. Some of the groups included the sick, healthcare workers, those in education, migrants, the poor, and prisoners.
- Young pilgrims from Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Riverside joined one million participants from 146 countries for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Youth in Rome.
- Bishop Emeritus Gerald Barnes led a pilgrimage of “Gratitude to Guadalupe” to Mexico.
- Bishop Rojas joined a call for migrant solidarity at a binational pilgrimage from San Luis, Arizona into Sonora, Mexico, where he took a turn carrying a green wooden cross that displayed the 2025 Jubilee Pilgrims of Hope logo.
- Diocesan leaders, including Bishop Rojas and Diocesan Chancellor, Sister Leticia Salazar, ODN, presented at the Vatican for the Jubilee of Synodal teams.
- St. Mary of the Valley Parish in Yucca Valley helped fund a charitable building project that provides critically needed clean water and sanitation services to the people of Choluteca, Honduras.
- The Diocese of San Bernardino joined the Diocese of San Diego in a Pilgrimage of Hope for Creation, an environmental walking pilgrimage through the Eastern Coachella Valley to the Salton Sea.
Many parish communities coordinated their own pilgrimages to other diocesan designated Jubilee parish sites, increased the amount of confession times offered as well as Eucharistic Adoration times in honor of the 2025 Jubilee year. Additionally, many parishes held several works of mercy community service outreach programs to help those in need within the diocese.
As the 2025 Ordinary Jubilee year comes to its conclusion, the hopeful seeds planted this year will continue to grow as the diocese looks forward to the next Ordinary Jubilee year, 25 years from now in 2050.