Jubilee 2025: Volunteers of hope

Rome (Italy). In February 2025, some new missionary Daughters of Mary Help of Christians made themselves available as volunteers for the Jubilee of Hope 2025 in Rome.

Some 13,000 applications have been received from all continents to coordinate the service of Jubilee volunteers. The volunteers have been available for longer or shorter periods, so that during the weeks, service is guaranteed by fixed presences and mobile presences, to cover each week. (cfr. Vatican News)

On 8 February 2025 five FMA new missionaries began service for a week, while one of them, Sister Catherine Ramírez Sánchez, Chilean FMA destined to Cuba, continued the experience until the end of the month, as she recounts in her testimony:

“Every morning, we left the Generalate for the Vatican to serve the Lord in the pilgrims who came to Saint Peter’s Basilica. The morning began with a short meeting, in which the referent gave useful information: number of pilgrims and registered groups, various circumstances of the day. Then he sent us to the various service points along the pilgrimage route from Piazza Pia, at the beginning of Via della Conciliazione, to the tomb of the apostle Saint Peter inside the Basilica. Each point of service was an opportunity to meet Jesus, a pilgrim in every person who comes to St. Peter.

So, I spent a week of service with the new Missionaries and started my new service for one month. During this period of volunteering, I accompanied the pilgrims along all points of the journey:

Piazza Pia: The place of reception for those who wish to start their journey towards the Holy Door, validate their registration on the Iubilaeum25 app and receive a note with the prayer to be used in this journey. A group of at least 10 people gather and they are given the wooden Cross, made especially for this Jubilee and handcrafted. It is carried by a person and can be exchanged between the pilgrims until they reach the tomb of Saint Peter. This is the beginning of the exclusive route of pilgrims towards the Holy Door.

Via della Conciliazione: Along this route, volunteers are stationed at every corner to ensure that the road is free for those heading towards the Holy Door.

Piazza Pius XII: the Plaza of encounter. This is another important point, almost in the center of St Peter’s Square, where volunteers offer their service, not only to pilgrims, but also to tourists who ask for information, especially to reach the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. From this point, prior registration, can also enter the people alone or with mobility difficulties who wish to go through the Holy Door.

Security check: in this area, the volunteers assist law enforcement at the security check for entry into St Peter’s Basilica, giving clear instructions on how to pass through the metal detector.

Bronze Door: at this crossroads of the journey, volunteers orient pilgrims and tourists, both for direct entry to the Basilica, to go to the tombs of the Popes, the dome, and especially to clear the road for those who arrive on pilgrimage from Piazza Pia.

The Square: the last stage of the route. At this point, the volunteers are distributed in front of the entrance of the Basilica, to accompany the pilgrims to cross the Holy Door. Crossing the Basilica, in front of the tomb of the apostle Peter, they proclaim the Creed. This act of faith concludes the pilgrimage. The volunteer who accompanied the group picks up the Cross and takes it to the collection point, where another volunteer is responsible for returning it to Piazza Pia, for another group of pilgrims.

Once the pilgrimage is over, pilgrims who wish can go to the Iubilaeum25 InfoPoint and request a certificate as a reminder of their participation in the joy of this jubilee experience.

As a volunteer, I thank God the Father of life, for this experience of universal Church. The languages, colors, and cultures of the world come together in one place to welcome this invitation to reconciliation, to live the year of grace, forgiveness, and mercy proclaimed by Holy Father Francis.

In this Jubilee of Hope, my heart exults with joy, faith, and renewed love in seeing so many children, young people, adults, families, who cross the Holy Door with devotion, recollection, with the certainty of crossing a holy place, with the certainty that God Himself is opening His arms to forgiveness.

Standing for 5 or 6 hours, serving so many people, can bring out fatigue and sacrifice, but on the faces of the volunteers one always finds a friendly smile and an attentive look, to answer the doubts and questions of the people who approach.

Deep in my heart remains a feeling of gratitude for the opportunity of service in this Jubilee and also for the passage of God in the many people met: pilgrims with so many intentions, dreams, desires, faith, and above all, for the many volunteers willing to give their time – a week, a month, six months, a year – to serve Christ in this Jubilee, some even leaving their own country.”

In the Angelus of 9 March 2025, Jubilee of Volunteering, Pope Francis expressed gratitude to all volunteers, made even more vivid by the direct experience of his admission to the Polyclinic Agostino Gemelli:

“In our societies, which are too subservient to the logic of the market, where everything risks being subject to the criterion of interest and the pursuit of profit, volunteering is a prophecy and a sign of hope, because it testifies to the primacy of gratuity, of solidarity and service to the neediest. To those who are engaged in this field, I express my gratitude: thank you for the offer of your time and skills; thank you for the closeness and tenderness with which you take care of others, awakening hope in them!

Brothers and sisters, in my long stay here at the hospital, I too experience the solicitude of service and the tenderness of care, especially by doctors and health-care workers, whom I thank from my heart. And while I am here, I think of so many people who in different ways are close to the sick and are for them a sign of the presence of the Lord. We need this, the ‘miracle of tenderness’, which accompanies those who are suffering by bringing a little light into their night of pain.”

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