Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C. / The White House / Wikimedia Commons
A new summer exhibit at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C. is sharing key moments and words from the pontiff from the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and how his witness connects to this year’s Jubilee of Hope.
“Pope John Paul II considered the Jubilee of the Year 2000 to be one of the hermeneutical keys for his entire pontificate,” Sofía Maurette, the shrine’s director of intercultural ministry, said in a recent press release about the exhibit. “In his very first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, published in 1979, he calls the last decades of the 20th century a ‘new advent’ in which the Church would prepare herself for the 2000-year anniversary of the Incarnation of Christ.”
Twenty-five years later, the Church is celebrating the Jubilee of Hope, which is marked especially by opportunities to obtain plenary indulgences by going to Jubilee pilgrimage sites around the world. The St. John Paul II Shrine is one such site.
Maurette weighed in on the shrine’s joy of being able to enrich pilgrims’ journeys this year through the historic exhibit.
“As a Jubilee pilgrimage site,” Maurette said, “we are thrilled to be able to offer our pilgrims the opportunity to remember the Great Jubilee while we live this Jubilee Year of Hope that has already been so significant for the Church.”
The temporary Jubilee exhibit, which has been incorporated into the permanent exhibit on the life of St. John Paul II, includes a life-size replica of the Holy Doors opened by Pope John Paul II and a breakdown of every image depicted on them. The exhibit also spotlights the saint’s words, teachings, and witness from Jubilee Year 2000 that are especially poignant with this year’s Jubilee theme, according to the release.
The exhibit also has objects and memorabilia from the celebrations in 2000, as well as educational and catechetical explanations of the history of Jubilee years in the Church.
The exhibit will run from June to August and will be featured in the shrine’s exhibit tours, which are available in English and Spanish.
