Opening the Holy Door:
Hope-Filled Scripture Reflections from St. Peter’s Basilica
Joan Watson
Ave Maria Press, 2024
An estimated 35 million visitors are expected to visit Rome this year to take part in the 2025 Jubilee Year, a celebration that occurs once every 25 years. Pope Francis ushered it in on Dec. 24, 2024, by opening the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. The year ends on Jan. 6, 2026, when Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to close it. After that, the Holy Door is not expected to be opened again until the 2050 Jubilee.
That door plays a significant role in the Jubilee Year experience: Tradition holds that pilgrims who pass through it receive a blessing. In Opening the Holy Door: Hope-Filled Scripture Reflections from St. Peter’s Basilica (Ave Maria Press, 2024), author Joan Watson stops pilgrims (and virtual pilgrims participating from afar) at that door and asks them to really examine what they’re about to pass through.
St. Peter’s Holy Door was created for the 1950 Jubilee; it has 16 bronze panels representing key moments in salvation history. Watson highlights 12 panels, and serves as a guide for a prayerful encounter with them.
Watson carries the theme of this year’s Jubilee, “Pilgrims of Hope,” throughout this little book, opening a channel for readers to engage in a tradition that harkens back to the year 1300 in Christianity, and back over three millennia since its first mention in the Book of Leviticus. With just a bit the 2025 Jubilee left, Opening the Holy Door offers prospective pilgrims a way to participate, even if they can’t catch a flight to Rome.
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