Two big events of yesterday led to 2 questions... The Jubilee Year of Mercy and the big feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
Q. What's all this about a Jubilee Year of Mercy?
A. Catholic Christians - like Christ himself - preserve many traditions of the Chosen People, the Jews, our "elders in the faith". "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets..." Jesus said. Enter any Catholic Church and you will find many items reminiscent of the Old Testament but now fulfilled in the New such as the altar, the tabernacle, the vigil lamp, the vestments used by priests in their priestly duties, the incense, the candelabra, etc.
The Jubilee Year is also something inherited from the Jews. "Springing from the practice of observing the Sabbath — seventh — day of the week, there were also “Sabbath Years” in Jewish custom, which took place every seventh year, when the fields were left fallow, and allowed to rest for the entire year.
Building upon that, according to Leviticus, the year that followed every seventh of Sabbath Years (i.e., the 50th year, after 7 times 7 years [49 years]) was the Jubilee Year. The etymology of Jubilee, of Hebrew origin, is “the year of the blowing of the ram’s horn”, announced to the people by the blowing of a ram’s horn from the Temple. In Ezekiel, the Jubilee is called the “Year of Release” ", where farmland was left fallow, those who had been forced to sell ancestral land had their land reinstated and slaves were set free. In this way, people were materially redeemed from absolute poverty.
The modern jubilee celebrated by the Catholic Church aims at a spiritual rather than material redemption from poverty. She opens the doors (symbolised by the opening of the Holy Door in the cathedrals) of her spiritual treasury and allows all to walk through.
This particular Jubilee, Pope Francis has wanted the entire people of God to share and partake more specifically in the richness of God's mercy. Thus the Jubilee Year of Mercy.
Happy Jubilee!
I would like to summarise the preliminary answer to why Catholics celebrate Mary so much and consider her so holy with a meme I came across...