St Bernards High School - Bernardian Yearbook (Fitchburg, MA)

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O Mary, our Mother, bless our Holy Father, our bishops, priests, religious and all of us, your children, during this Holy Year of Jubilee.

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Our Holy Father 1950, Jubilee Year, turns our thoughts to Rome and to our Holy Father. May God give to his frail body the strength necessary to carry on as he would like to do, and to be able to greet the thousands of pilgrims who journey to Rome to come close to him and to receive his blessing! May we strive to reform our lives by prayer and penance as he wishes us to do! His HOLINESS, Pore Pius XII

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1950 - Holy Year Jubilee “Let petition be made to God that all by prayer and penance may expiate their sins; strive to reform their lives, and acquire Christian virtue, so that this great Jubilee may happily prepare a general and universal return to Christ.” Such are the stirring words of His Holiness Pope Pius XH, in his Papal Bull announcing the Holy Year of 1950. Under the Old Law, every fiftieth year was to be celebrated as a jubilee year, a time of joy. In Leviticus xxv, 10, we read: “Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year.’’ At this time families were reunited, Hebrew slaves were set free, and debts canceled. The basic idea of the jubilee proclaimed by Holy Church is quite similar to this in its spiritual nature. The first Holy Year in the Church, of which there 1s any authentic record, took place in 1300, during the reign of Pope Boniface VIII. But it i s certain that this idea of observing a fiftieth anniversary was familiar long before that time. Among the pilgrims in 1300 was an old man from Savoy, 108 years old, who related to the Pope that his father had brought him to Rome 100 years before to gain special indulgences. His father urged him to return to Rome again in 1300 if he should be spared that long. Other pilgrims gave similar testimony confirming this tradition. According to Pope Boniface VIII, the Jubilee should be celebrated only once in a hundred years. But about the middle of the fourteenth century, St. Bridget of Sweden and many others appealed to Clement VI that the period between jubilees be shortened so that the average person might have at least one opportunity to gain these graces. In 1343 Clement consented to do this. Pope Paul II, granting the requests of many pilgrims, announced that a Holy Year of Jubilee would be celebrated every twenty-five years; and so it has been since 1475 to the present time with but three exceptions, due to political troubles. It was Pope Alexander VI who introduced the impressive ceremony of the Holy Door in each of the four great basilicas which the pilgrims are required to visit. This holy door is mentioned as early as 1437, but it may have had reference only to the right of sanctuary, which existed in pagan times for all who crossed the threshold of the “puerta tarpea’”’ upon the site of the Lateran. It is thought that Constantine besought Pope Sylvester to give the same immunity from punishment for Christian sinners who took refuge there. But this privilege was abused so much that the door was walled up except at times of special grace. On Christmas Eve of 1949, Pope Pius XII followed the established custom of previous pontiffs by opening the Holy Door, a walled entrance to St. Peter's Basilica. This our Holy Father did by knocking upon the door three times with a golden hammer, singing the versicle, “Open unto me the gates of justice.” The masonry, which had been loosened before, fell at the third blow, and our Holy Father entered St. Peter’s. At the end of this Holy Year, Pope Pius XII will again officiate at the closing of this Holy Door.