On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis will open the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica to inaugurate the Jubilee year of 2025. It is a momentous occasion, a year marked out for forgiveness and renewal. There have been Holy Years since 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII called the first, but they ultimately derive from the Jubilees of the Old Testament when the fruits of the earth were given to all: “The sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you; for your cattle also, and for the beasts that are in your land, all its yield shall be for food” (Lev 25:6-7).