CELEBRATION OF JUBILEE YEAR

SATURDAY, SEVENTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 

Levi 25:1,8-17; Ps 67:2-3,5,7-8; Mt 14:1-12

The Jubilee of Love and Mercy

The law on the celebration of the Jubilee year is another means that God intended to make the lives of the people reflect their relationship with Yahweh.  The Jubilee celebration is to encourage the people to participate in the act of liberation of those in any form of bondage. It would also be a year of abundance of grace. Celebrating the Jubilee makes the people realise that they are also major participants in the liberation of souls from various bondages. God is the source of all liberations, but for the liberation he gives to reach everyone, we all must participate by setting those we are holding in bondage free. The physical shackles were emphasized then, but our Lord has brought the spiritual shackles of sin to the fore, as the source of all other shackles or bondages. The Jubilee year is, therefore, a year to celebrate the people's common humanity and as a gift from God. Each is to look at his neighbours as brothers and sisters. All were to reconnect to relatives and kindreds. "You will declare this fiftieth year sacred and proclaim the liberation of all the inhabitants of the land."

Jesus Christ is the mystical Jubilee year for all, for he came to proclaim the year of salvation to all, an acceptable year to God, our Father. The Lord's year is a year of favour and fullness of salvation. Since sin is the source of all shackles, it follows that our Lord's death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins ultimately proclaims the meaning of the Jubilee year. It is not accidental, therefore, that the declaration is made on the feast of Atonement. "On the day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout the land." Subsequently, the day of the Atonement of the sin of the whole world and our race is the reality of the Jubilee year celebration prefigured in the Jewish celebration. Because of the foundational import of the Lord's death and the forgiveness of our sins thereby, the Church emphasises the forgiveness of sins in the celebration of Jubilee years. By forgiving one another's sins, we make God's forgiveness concrete in our lives, situations, and relations. Our forgiveness of each other's sin and love for one another bring God's love and forgiveness to people around us. We block or impede God's abundant love and compassion when we fail to obey God's ordinance of love and forgiveness.

The Gospel presents Herod as an example of one who hardened his heart to God's grace of forgiveness. He was in the great bondage of sin, which John the Baptist called his attention to. But instead of harkening to the voice of the Prophet, he had him put in prison, to please his sinful and wicked lover, Herodias. "Now, it was Herod who arrested John, chained him up and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife." His inability to follow grace led him to commit a heinous sin, the beheading of John the Baptist at the request of the same woman. It is true, as Our Lord affirmed, that John went the way God ordained for him, but Herod lost the opportunity to gain mercy and forgiveness of his sins. The Church invites us to live our Christian life as a continuous celebration of the Jubilee year of God's mercy. It is our vocation to proclaim the Father's mighty deeds of mercy to everyone around us. "O God, be gracious and bless us and let your face shed its light upon us. So will your ways be known upon earth and all nations learn your salvation. "May the prayers of our Mother Mary aid us to live our forgiveness in reality.

O God, protector of those who hope in you, without whom nothing has firm foundation, nothing is holy, bestow in abundance your mercy upon us and grant that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may use the good things that pass in such a way as to hold fast even now to those that ever endure. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.