Almost one year ago, the pope initiated the Jubilee Year of Mercy when he opened the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica. He will close them on Sunday, thus ending this extraordinary year dedicated to the mercy of God.

According to Rome Reports, Pope Francis will close the Holy Doors with a 10:00 a.m. Mass on Sunday which will also be attended by the 17 new cardinals who will be installed at the Consistory on Saturday.

Because the pope wanted to make the possibility of a plenary indulgence during this Jubilee Year as widely available as possible, each diocese around the world had a Holy Door. It is estimated that more than one billion people took advantage of the extraordinary graces that accompanied the celebration of this holy year.

Of that number, 20.4 million people are believed to have participated in Year of Mercy events at the Vatican over the course of the past year.

Even though the year doesn’t officially end until November 20, the Feast of Christ the King, Holy Doors at three Rome basilicas have already closed – St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major – all of which were closed on November 13 along with the doors at cathedrals around the world.

In his homily for the Mass at St. John Lateran on Nov. 13, Cardinal Agostino Vallini spoke about how the Holy Door, just closed, was a visible sign of the Jubilee of Mercy, a year where we learned “once again” that the fate of the world is not in the hands of men, “but in the mercy of God.”

Let us go forth into the world, bearing within us the extraordinary graces we have received during this holy year, and bring the mercy of God into the lives of all that we encounter.

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