Pope Francis’ Sign of Charity for the Jubilee

Pope Francis has chosen to finance 2 projects as a concrete gesture of charity for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy:

 

 

1st Project: Construction of a New Cathedral in Moroto

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2nd Project: Construction of an Agricultural School in Burkina Faso

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At the end of the Jubilee, the Jubilee Crosses that have accompanied the millions of pilgrims who came to Rome from all over the world will be available. 

We invite anyone who would like to receive a Jubilee Cross to indicate their intention to offer a contribution for it through to following email: info@im.va

 

Jubilee Cross

 

The Jubilee Crosses were custom designed, and a series of 33 Crosses were handmade by architect Riccardo Izzi between September 2015 and March 2016, commissioned by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization. 

The idea of the Cross was born from the need to accompany pilgrims for the Jubilee of Mercy with a visible sign of their pilgrimage as they made their way through the last stage of the pilgrimage that leads through the Holy Door in Saint Peter’s Basilica.  This sign has the double purpose of helping the faithful to remain recollected and prayerful during their pilgrimage, and of witnessing to the act of being on pilgrimage in the city of Rome. 

The entire Holy Year has seen a continuous procession of these Crosses, followed by groups of the faithful expressing their faith by walking up the reserved pathway that leads from the Gardens of Castel Sant’Angelo, along all of Via della Conciliazione, through Saint Peter’s Square, and then to the Holy Door and, finally, into the Vatican Basilica, where the spiritual journey of conversion pauses to make the profession of faith over the tomb of the Apostle Peter.

The Jubilee Cross is made entirely of birchwood, and is hand-varnished with a transparent water-based enamel with an opaque finish.  Its distinctive mark is the almond-shaped relief in the center, where the two arms cross, which contains the Jubilee logo. 

The figure of Christ the Good Shepherd, realized in high relief, reaches outside of the concentric ovals that become ever darker and deeper towards the inside of the logo, to accent the dynamism expressed in the logo designed by Fr. Marko I. Rupnik.  In the image, Christ carries the person outside of the night of sin and death.  This tridimensional presentation of the logo, hand-painted with water-based enamels, draws particular attention to the movement that Rupnik wanted to highlight in the logo for the Jubilee of Mercy.

Around the logo, the motto of the Jubilee, Misericordes sicut Pater was engraved by laser, to remain faithful to the style of the script in the original logo. 

The length of the vertical arm of the Cross is 181 cm, while the width of the horizontal bar is 89 cm; both arms are 114 mm wide and 24 mm thick. Its weight was kept to the minimum by leaving the inside hollow, so that the Cross would be suited to being carried in procession.

At the ends of the horizontal arms and at the top of the vertical bar, the Cross has concave curvatures that extend at the tips, reminiscent of the oval of the mandorla that surrounds the central logo.  Along all the edges of the Cross there is narrow strip of a darker color, 13 mm wide, that makes the contours of the Cross stand out. 

 

 

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