Countdown to Jubilee 2025
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Ahead of the beginning of the Jubilee of Hope in 2025, the Dicastery for Evangelization is hosting various events, including concerts and exhibitions. In a press conference, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Pro-prefect of the Dicastery, outlined the itinerary for some of the upcoming events.
History comes to life though song
A series of concerts, starting on November 3, will begin the countdown to the Jubilee. At 6pm at the Conciliazione Auditorium, the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia will perform Dmitrij Dmiitrievič Šostakovič’s Symphony No. 5 in D Minor Op. 7.
The curator of concerts and exhibitions for the program, “Jubilee is Culture”, Dr. Davide Mambriani, described this concert as important. He says because the Academy “has a particular relationship with the Holy See and the papacy as it was founded in 1585 when Pope Sixtus V published the bull ‘Ratione congruit’, establishing the Congregation of Musicians.”
“We are all bearers of the same message”
Another major event ahead of the Jubilee is the exhibition of various rare icons from the Vatican Museums. A set of 18 different icons were chosen from all around Eastern Europe, including Greece, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Macedonia. Archbishop Fisichella says this exhibition is the “fruit of two years of working with experts.”
A third exhibition will be the Vatican’s annual 100 Nativity Scenes to be displayed under one side of Bernini’s colonnade in St. Peter’s Square. Each year, one region or city is chosen to be the partner. This 8th edition will be dedicated to Rome, Archbishop Fisichella announced. The nativities will be oepn from December 8 until January 6, 2025.
Holy See Pavilion in Expo 2025
The Pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization also announced the Holy See’s participation in the World Expo in Osaka, Japan next year. The Vatican will be part of Italy’s pavillion and will feature the only Caravaggio preserved in the Vatican Museums: the Deposition of Christ.
Luce, the Vatican's mascot for the event, ties both the Jubilee and the Expo together. She is a pilgrim doll made in the pop culture style and carries many of the symbols of a pilgrim: a missionary cross, staff and boots dirty from walking.
The pavillion’s theme coincides with that of the Jubilee: “La bellezza porta speranza” or “Beauty brings hope.” Archbishop Fisichella say the word “porta” has a double meaning in this phrase. First, because it is “dynamic action that highlights access to hope” and secondly, “porta” references the Holy Door to be open “to anyone looking for peace and reconciliation.”
