The Pope has given us a joyful and unexpected gift: the proclamation of a Jubilee Year dedicated to the beloved Saint Francis of Assisi.
This gift of grace comes on the heels of the Jubilee Year of Hope, which concluded on January 6. That jubilee invited the faithful worldwide into renewal, reconciliation, and pilgrimage—and this new jubilee invites us to embrace the poverty and charity that defined St. Francis.
This latest jubilee—which began on January 10, 2026 and concludes on the same day next year—marks 800 years since the death of Saint Francis.
He was born around 1181, and in a remarkably short life of just 44 years, he transformed the Church through radical fidelity to the Gospel and deep love for the poor.
Canonized only two years after his death, his witness of faith and charity has endured for eight centuries.
“This Jubilee is not nostalgia, but a living testimony that the Gospel simplicity of Francis still speaks powerfully to the Church and to the modern world.”
— Pope Leo XIV
Saint Francis was the people’s saint. But it’s striking that it took nearly 800 years for a pope to choose his name, which Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio did when he became Pope Francis in 2013. That decision reflected a profound identification with the saint’s embrace of poverty, humility, and dependence on God.
While many saints have lived lives of simplicity, few expressed it as visibly and poetically as Saint Francis. His voluntary poverty and trust in divine providence remain a powerful challenge in a world often defined by excess.
The integration of faith and daily life is central to the mission of the Napa Institute. Our purpose has always been to immerse Catholics into a lifestyle that unites work, leisure, and spirituality. Faith is not meant to lived in just one hour on Sunday. It is meant to be lived 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in everything we do and with everyone we meet.
Pope Leo XIV has emphasized that this Jubilee is meant to show how Francis’s way of life — though 800 years old — is just as achievable in modern society. It reminds us that simplicity, surrender to God’s providence, and authentic Christian witness are timeless.
May all of us embody the best of that Saint—so that we, like him, may do good works on earth and walk the road to heaven.
The Grace of the Jubilee
The Jubilee offers real and extraordinary graces. A plenary indulgence will be granted to those who:
- Participate in a pilgrimage ‘to any Franciscan conventual church, or place of worship in any part of the world named after St. Francis or connected to him for any reason.’
- Recite the Apostles’ Creed
- Attend at Mass within eight days
- Receive Sacramental Confession within eight days before or after
- Pray for the intentions of the Holy Father
- Be in a state of grace
