Jubilee Garden
Why is it called a Jubilee Garden?
In our Roman Catholic tradition, a jubilee year is a particular time to extend mercy and justice. It finds its origin in scriptural texts such as Leviticus 25:8-22, which calls for a jubilee year every fifty years. More recently, popes have announced a jubilee year every twenty-five years, as a regular practice. When a special occasion arises apart from this twenty-five year cycle, the Roman Pontiff may announce an extraordinary jubilee year.
In April of 2015, Pope Francis announced an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, to begin on December 8, 2015. Mercy is key to Pope Francis’ vocation and self-understanding. The Holy Father tells the story that on September 21, 1953, while confessing his sins, the Lord Jesus reached out to him with mercy and chose him to be a priest, just as Jesus reached out with mercy to Matthew, who, as a tax collector was regarded as a sinner, choosing him to be an apostle. The Venerable Bede, an eighth-century English monk wrote that Jesus’ call to Matthew was miserando atque eligendo, meaning “because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him.” This Latin phrase was the motto Pope Francis chose when he became a bishop, and which he retained as Holy Father.
Our original community garden of 10,000 square feet was built during the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, in the spring of 2016. (Three years later, it was expanded by 8,000 square feet.) It opened for its first growing season in June of that year, and was blessed by Bishop George Thomas later that year, in August. Fittingly, it was named the Jubilee Garden. It welcomed the greater Helena community in conjunction Helena Community Gardens. The Jubilee Garden is itself a sign and an instrument of mercy as it helps to address hunger in our area through its association with Helena Food Share. Now in its fifth year, the Jubilee Garden has donated well over five tons of fresh organic produce to Helena Food Share.
The Jubilee Garden is a celebration of a local jubilee as well: fifty years since the dedication of our new church building on Missoula Avenue, by then-Bishop Raymond Hunthausen. Saint Mary was the first church structure in the Diocese of Helena to be conceived, designed, and constructed in the light the Second Vatican Council’s liturgical reforms. Coincidentally, Bishop Hunthausen lived to become the last surviving bishop participant present at all four sessions of the Council. To top it all off, the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council. So, it is jubilee upon jubilee upon jubilee!
The original Jubilee Garden was designed and built by thirteen parishioners who worked two days a week for three months. Many of the same parishioners were also responsible for the addition three years later. Over its five-year service, the Jubilee Garden has seen many other improvements such as picnic tables, a pergola, a storage shed, a composting area, shade trees, a memorial garden, and more. The outer perimeter of the Jubilee Garden is home to the Jubilee Walk, featuring texts from the Prayer of Saint Francis and the Beatitudes displayed on banners affixed to the fence. Most fittingly, it is part of what makes the Jubilee Garden a place of peace and prayer, inviting all to share in the bounty of mercy.
