Since some parishes will not be able to offer Mass Wednesday-Friday since their priests must meet with the Archbishop, please know that St. Joseph Chapel & the Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (400 South Blvd. West, Pontiac, MI 48341) will be OPEN on Wednesday (tomorrow), Friday and Saturday (our normal days of operation). We open at 10:30 am with Eucharistic Exposition, 11:00 am Confessions and Noon Mass followed by the praying of the Holy Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. We are a shrine, not a parish, and so I am not a pastor but a spiritual director.
We now have another Jubilee Year! Pope Leo XIV has announced a Jubilee Year of St. Francis of Assisi to commemorate the 800th Anniversary of the saint’s death (on Oct. 3, 1226). The year runs from January 10, 2026 to January 10, 2027. This “exceptional” Jubilee Year is a continuation of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025: “Following in the footsteps of the Poverello [Italian for “the little poor man”] of Assisi, let us transform the hope that made us pilgrims during the Holy Year into fervor and zeal of effective charity.” (Jubilee Decree)
While this Jubilee Year is especially addressed to Franciscans, it is an invitation to ALL Catholics who, detached from sin, “visit in the form of a pilgrimage any Franciscan conventual church or place of worship dedicated to St. Francis [or connected to him for any reason] in any part of the world. The elderly, the sick and those who for serious reasons cannot leave home will also be able to obtain the plenary indulgence by spiritually joining the Jubilee celebrations and offering their prayers, pains or sufferings to God.”
What is a plenary indulgence? There are two consequences of sin: guilt and punishment. Guilt is more dangerous: The guilt of a single mortal sin will send us to Hell if it isn’t removed before we die. But no amount of temporal punishment will send us to Hell; it can only delay our entrance into Heaven. To help us eliminate all temporal punishment while on earth indulgences may be granted by the Church.
Thus an “indulgence” is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt had already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction of Christ and the saints (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1471). A plenary indulgence remits ALL temporal punishment. It may be applied to ourself or to a soul in Purgatory.
Conditions for receiving the Plenary Indulgence are the following:
- Sacramental Confession (8 days before or after Holy Communion);
- Holy Communion: Participate in Holy Mass and receive Holy Communion;
- Pilgrimage visit & Creed: Visit in the form of a pilgrimage any Franciscan church or place of worship dedicated to St. Francis anywhere in the world, where one renews one’s profession of faith, through the recitation of the Creed, to reaffirm one’s Christian identity;
- Pray the Our Father: Recite it to reaffirm your dignity as a child of God, received in Baptism;
- Pray for the Pope’s intentions to reaffirm belonging to the Church, whose foundation and visible center of unity is the Roman Pontiff.
To communicate with me, please email me directly at abunaalex@yahoo.com or call/text me at (313) 727-9784. St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us!
In Jesus, Mary & Joseph,
Fr. Alex Kratz, OFM
Spiritual Director of Terra Sancta Ministries