December 2025

As the entire Church crosses the threshold into what promises to be the most luminous month of this entire Jubilee Year. December will be pure grace from beginning to end: four weeks of deepening Advent longing, the great solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Gaudete Sunday’s rose-colored rejoicing, the tender nearness of Christmas Eve falling on a Wednesday, and then — like a final, blazing fireworks of mercy — the solemn closing of the Holy Doors of the major Roman basilicas across the Christmas octave. Under the gentle, fatherly guidance of our young Pope Leo XIV, the Church will sing her way through the O Antiphons, kneel in silence before the crib, and watch the Jubilee Year of Hope fold its wings with exquisite tenderness right at the feet of the Newborn King.

The liturgical rhythm could not be more perfect. We begin tomorrow, December 1, already immersed in the great Advent “O” — O Wisdom, O Adonai, O Root of Jesse — building day by day toward the cry of O Emmanuel on December 23. Then, on Monday, December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception will dawn like a spotless sunrise. Holy Day of Obligation, patronal feast of the United States, and the triumph of the Woman who was preserved from sin so that she could become the living Advent wreath bearing the Light of the World. Expect cathedrals and parishes to be absolutely packed; many bishops have already announced that they will personally preside at evening vigil Masses on December 7 so the faithful can fulfill the obligation before returning to work on Monday.

Gaudete Sunday, December 14, will feel like a foretaste of heaven this year. Rose vestments, the organ in full voice, and the reading “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!” ringing out just eleven days before Christmas. That same weekend Rome will welcome the Jubilee of Prisoners — one of the final great pilgrimages — when thousands of incarcerated men and women, along with their chaplains and families, will pass through the Holy Door while the rest of us pray in solidarity from our own parishes.

Then comes the exquisite intimacy of the Fourth Sunday of Advent falling on December 21, only three days before Christmas. The readings will barely have time to settle in our hearts before we are lighting the Christmas candles and processing to Midnight Mass. Pope Leo XIV will celebrate the Mass During the Night in St. Peter’s on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day itself he will close the Holy Door of St. Mary Major with a solemn morning Mass at the crib of Salus Populi Romani — an image that already moves the whole Church to tears when we think about it. The Holy Doors of St. John Lateran and St. Paul Outside the Walls will close on December 27 and 28 respectively, and the very last pilgrims will pass through the Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on the Feast of the Holy Family, Sunday, December 28. Thus the Jubilee Year of Hope will end exactly where it should: in the arms of the Holy Family.

Our Holy Father Leo XIV has made it clear that he wishes December to be a month of tenderness rather than spectacle. His Wednesday audiences throughout Advent will be given in the warmth of the Paul VI Hall rather than in the Square, so that the crowds can be more intimate. On December 6 he will again host the Christmas Concert with the Poor — this year featuring Andrea Bocelli and a children’s choir made up entirely of migrant and refugee children. His December prayer intention, carried in the Pope Video, is for migrants and refugees — perfectly echoing the flight into Egypt that we will contemplate during the Christmas Masses. And on New Year’s Eve he will lead First Vespers and Te Deum in St. Peter’s in thanksgiving for the Jubilee Year, before giving the traditional New Year’s Day Angelus message of peace on January 1, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

Our bishops are already preparing with visible joy. Many American dioceses have scheduled the closing of their own cathedral Holy Doors for the Feast of the Holy Family or Epiphany, and several are organizing “Christmas Mercy Nights” — entire nights of confession, adoration, and carols in the final week before Christmas. The fruits of the November plenary assembly are still fresh: expect even more emphatic calls to welcome migrants, protect life, and live the corporal works of mercy as the true way to close this Year of Hope.

For our priests, December will be a beautiful martyrdom of love. Confessions are already beginning this week — some parishes have scheduled them every single night of Advent. Midnight Masses, dawn Masses, day Masses, hospital visits, nursing-home communions, prison chapels — our priests will barely sleep from Gaudete Sunday until the Baptism of the Lord. This is the moment when the lay faithful have a special duty to surround them with prayer and practical charity. Spiritual bouquets, plates of homemade cookies left in the sacristy, gift cards for a quiet dinner out in January when the storm has passed — little things that say “we see you, we love you, we are praying for you.”

Seminarians, many of whom begin Christmas break right after Gaudete Sunday, are being sent out like joyful apostles to help with parish missions, simbang gabi novenas, and the massive Christmas liturgies. Several seminaries have told me privately that this year’s Jubilee graces have produced the largest crop of applicants in two decades. Young men are writing letters that say, “I walked through the Holy Door in Rome (or in my own cathedral) and I simply knew: this is where Christ wants me.”

And our nuns — oh, our blessed nuns and consecrated sisters — December belongs to them in a special way. The Immaculate Conception is their great triumph, the feast of the pure womb that made Christmas possible. Cloistered communities are already receiving hundreds of Christmas novena intentions: for wayward children, for vocations, for the Holy Father, for peace in suffering families. Many monasteries are offering a special plenary indulgence enrollment for the souls of deceased parents and grandparents if you send their names before Christmas. The hidden prayer pouring out from those grilles is the true reason the Church will enter 2026 radiant rather than exhausted.

My dear brothers and sisters, let us make this December the most beautiful month of our lives. Let every rosary be prayed in front of the Advent wreath or the crèche. Let every confession be made with tears of gratitude for the Jubilee graces received. Let every Christmas light we hang proclaim that the Light has conquered the darkness, and that the Door of Mercy — even when it closes in Rome — remains forever open in the Heart of Jesus and in His Church.Come, Lord Jesus.