Pope Francis has declared this to be a Jubilee Year for “Pilgrims of Hope.” What is a jubilee year? Jesus refers to it in today’s gospel. Quoting from the Prophet Isaiah he declares: “The Spirit of the Lord… has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives… to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (61: 1-2; 58: 6).
He is hearkening back to the ancient Jewish practice referred to in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus. Every fifty years those who had sold their ancestral lands and were reduced to slavery because of debts could regain their property and liberty. An indentured Israelite could also be liberated by being redeemed by a kinsman (Hebrew: go’el). In addition to the fifty-year jubilee, there was also a minor jubilee every seventh year when the poor could have their debts forgiven.
The prophet Isaiah applies the jubilee concept to the people as a whole describing the return of Israel’s exiles to the land. The Lord God is portrayed as Isreal’s kinsman redeemer (go’el) who frees Israel from the slavery caused by debts—that is, the exile caused by sins. Isaiah also applies the jubilee year to individuals as a time for “releasing those bound unjustly” and “setting free the oppressed” (Isaiah 58:6). Moreover, Isaiah interprets the jubilee in connection with the Messiah: the Lord's anointed is the one who will “proclaim liberty” and “announce a year of favor from the Lord” (61: 1-2). The jubilee law thus terms of prophecy for Israel’s future restoration: the Messiah will come as the kinsman who redeems the enslaved people, ushering in a jubilee age of liberty. (cf. Pablo Gadenz, The Gospel of Luke, p. 101).
St. Luke clearly portrays Jesus as the fulfillment of these prophesies when, after proclaiming this passage from Isaiah, he says to those gathered in the synagogue, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Through his ministry of preaching, healing, forgiving, dying, rising and sending the Holy Spirit, the jubilee era has been inaugurated.
In keeping with this tradition, the Catholic Church developed a custom of declaring jubilee years. Pope Francis summarized this development in his letter declaring this Jubilee of Hope: “The Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps toward the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus. I like to think that the proclamation of the first jubilee, in the year 1300 (by Pope Boniface VIII), was preceded by a journey of grace inspired by popular spirituality… In 1216, hope Honorius III granted the plea of Saint Francis for an indulgence for all those visiting the Porziuncola on the first two days of August. The same can be said of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela: in 1222, Pope Callistus II allowed the jubilee to be celebrated there whenever the feast of the apostle James fell on a Sunday. It is good that such dispersed celebrations of the jubilee continue, so that the power of God's forgiveness can support and accompany communities and individuals on their Pilgrim way.” (Spes Non Confundit, p. 5).
So the Church has continued celebrating Jubilee or Holy Years every fifty years. The last Ordinary Jubilee was in 2000 when Pope St. John Paul II led the church across the threshold of two millennia since the birth of Jesus. (The recent jubilee of 2015 was declared by Pope Francis as “Extraordinary.”)