My Pilgrimage to Rome in a Jubilee Year

Unlike the Christian pilgrims of old, wandering down the Appian Way towards the towering gates of Rome, my first impression was a glimpse through the grimy aeroplane window. It looked like any other city, but in the days ahead, I would open ancient church doors and wander down streets walked by saints, discovering this vibrant heartland of the Catholic and Christian world.

Rome is a sprawling metropolis filled with everything from relics of hundreds of saints, hidden paintings by Caravaggio and Michelangelo, and the eerie catacombs of Capuchin friars, to the very prison where Saints Peter and Paul were said to have been held. Not to mention the flocks of priests and nuns who dominated the streetscape around the Vatican—a refreshing sight, given the dearth of vocations in much of the developed world. From the rough-hewn cobblestones to the top of St Peter’s Basilica and Palatine Hill, Rome was clearly a city brimming with God. Coming from Australia, a deeply sectarian and now woefully secular society, with around 10 million Australians reporting no religion, the contrast was illuminating.

Growing up, I mistakenly thought religious pilgrimage was the hallmark of Islam rather than Catholicism, with memorable images of Muslim pilgrims circling the Kaaba in fulfillment of Hajj. I knew that Catholics who were ill visited sites like Lourdes, and sometimes people went to see the Pope, but that was where my thoughts of Catholic pilgrimage began and ended. So imagine my surprise and delight this year, entering my fourth decade of life, when a priest told us about the phenomenon of a Jubilee year—with Holy Doors in Rome that you can pass through to attain special spiritual benefits.

Of course, journeying to see the Pope and the Vatican can be and often is done by good Catholics, but it was the excitement and promise of the Holy Doors—doors opened only once every 25 years—that gripped my imagination and galvanised me. And so, on my journey from cafeteria-to-practising-Catholic, I embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome with my husband and our newborn baby.

The tradition of Holy Doors began hundreds of years ago, and there is one Holy Door at each of the four major basilicas in Rome: St Peter’s, St John Lateran, St Mary Major, and St Paul Outside the Walls. Rain, hail or shine, I was determined to walk through and pray at all of them.

On our first day we found ourselves pushing our daughter in her pram through the most well-known Holy Door at St Peter’s, three of the thousands of pilgrims who pass through the basilica every day. We had waited for this moment, and I was surprisingly overcome with emotion as I prayed inside one of the chapels along the side of the basilica. We were completing this Holy Door for my father, who had died 18 months earlier after an aggressive battle with prostate cancer. He was only fifty-seven.

To attain the full kit-and-kaboodle of a Holy Door, one must pass through it, pray for the Pope, go to confession, and receive the Eucharist. It is the completion of these Catholic classics that seals the deal on an indulgence (or full remission from suffering due to sin). Interestingly, it can be done for oneself or for a deceased person, and I had it on good authority from a priest that there was no limit to how many times we could “pass go and collect the reward.” Thinking like your average 30 year old, we figured my father, likely in purgatory, needed the benefits of a Holy Door before we would die of old age or get hit by a bus. 

While I prayed, I pictured my father jumping up and down for joy as St Peter opened the pearly gates for him, and I wept. Dad looked as gleeful as he did the day we told him we were expecting a baby boy, even though he was already very sick. As crazy as it sounds, in that moment, I truly believe my dad got let into Heaven.

We left St Peter’s, and my husband and I hotly debated whether we had, in fact, met all the Holy Door requirements to wipe clean Dad’s suffering in purgatory and open one of those narrow side gates into Heaven so he could enjoy a cigar and a cold beer. And it was here that appropriate doubts crept in. We had both completed the door for my father, but had our hurried confessions the day before missed some essential sins? I had only recently returned to confession, so I was admittedly out of practice.

As we examined the word and letter of the requirements, my husband Jay pointed out that it was preferred to receive the Eucharist on the same day. Our lackadaisical approach had us relying on Sunday Mass a few days earlier, so we knew we had better rectify this.

The following day, we doubled back to St Peter’s and said the prayers again, a little quicker this time. All up, it was a two-hour detour because of the time it took to get through security into St Peter’s square, but well worth it if it could secure an eternity for my father. We knew the clock was ticking on finding a Mass later that day to complete the ritual and complete it we did, at a small church with a quiet Mass said in Italian. We didn’t understand a word of it, but thankfully that didn’t seem to be a requirement.

Now that we felt we had secured this exciting opportunity for dad, a deal too good not to rinse and repeat, it was our turn. We visited both St Mary Major and St John Lateran on the same day, ducking under the church eaves with our daughter to escape a dash of rain. We walked the walk and talked the talk at both basilicas with their old, grand Holy Doors, figuring it was one of those “the more, the merrier” situations. We had, after all, flown halfway across the world to be there.

So, was it worth it? Or to the sceptics out there, did we just walk through some doors?

Unequivocally, yes. My experience of pilgrimage to the Holy Doors of Rome in a Jubilee year was profound. What began as a pilgrimage tacked onto a bigger summer Europe trip became the most meaningful part of our travels. Walking through the doors was transformative: inviting God and prayer to be central to my life and worldview.

More broadly, the physical landscape of ancient churches dating back to the early Christians is imprinted in my mind as I begin to walk a narrower, more faithful path in my own life. I want to go to Mass and try to be on time. I want to learn about all the solemnities of the Church I never heard of, despite growing up Catholic. When my daughter is old enough to remember, I want to bring her back to Rome to meet the Pope.

Certainly, I would like to return for future Jubilee years. If I am lucky, there will be two more in my lifetime—when I am 55 (in 2050) and when I am 85 (in 2075). My husband and I have promised each other that whoever dies first, if the other is still alive for a Jubilee year, they will go and complete the Holy Doors for them. In fact, we hope to impress this tradition upon our own children, who may one day do for us what we have done for my dad. Who knows? It might make all the difference, and that is a very significant thing.

A pilgrimage to Rome might not be obligatory for Catholics, but completing the Holy Doors in a Jubilee year (at least three times, by our count) has opened a door to a renewed spiritual fire in my life. Perhaps it has even helped my dad to get to Heaven.

Follow me on instagram @ashleighblaisemills for more on my faith journey after baby loss