Bishop Byrne Designates TAC Chapel as Jubilee Year Pilgrimage Site

In observance of the 2025 Jubilee Year, the Most Rev. William D. Byrne, Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts, has decreed that Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College, New England, will be an official pilgrimage site for the people of his diocese.

“I designated Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel as a Jubilee Pilgrimage Site because I want people to see one of the newest gems of the diocese.”

“As the Universal Church now looks toward the 2025^th anniversary of the Word becoming flesh among us, our local Church looks toward unique opportunities for the faithful to obtain Jubilee grace and blessing,” His Excellency proclaimed. “I hereby declare and decree Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel at Thomas Aquinas College a sacred place and pilgrimage site in the Diocese of Springfield.” 

Held at least once every 25 years, a Jubilee Year is a time of forgiveness for sins, thanksgiving, joyful celebration, and pilgrimage. His Holiness Pope Francis formally began the Jubilee Year in Rome on Christmas Eve with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. It will conclude on next year’s Feast of the Holy Family, December 28, 2025.

“I designated Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel as a Jubilee Pilgrimage Site because I want people to see one of the newest gems of the diocese,” explained His Excellency, who dedicated the Chapel in 2022. “Since TAC is relatively new to the Diocese of Springfield, I think it is important for people to know about its presence here, not just as a sightseeing stop but as a place of learning and prayer where we can give God glory, honor, and praise.” 

During this time, pilgrims to the Chapel who fulfill the usual conditions — detachment from sin, sacramental confession, Holy Communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father — will be able to obtain the Jubilee plenary indulgence by engaging in Eucharistic Adoration and meditation, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer, the Profession of Faith, and invocations to Our Lady. “In this Holy Year,” explains Bishop Byrne, quoting Pope Francis, “we pray that everyone ‘will come to know the closeness of Mary, the most affectionate of mothers, who never abandons her children.’”

“We are honored that His Excellency would designate Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel as a pilgrimage site, and we look forward to welcoming faithful pilgrims throughout the year.” 

Constructed in 1909 on what was then the campus of the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies, Thomas Aquinas College’s New England chapel is built from Rockport granite in a variant of the Gothic revival style fittingly known as Collegiate Gothic. A gift of Margaret Olivia Sage, it was originally named for her late husband, Russell Sage, an American financier, railroad executive, and member of Congress. In 2019, just weeks before the College launched its inaugural year of classes on the New England campus, it renamed the building in honor of Our Mother of Perpetual Help.

While preserving the Chapel’s elegance and heritage, the College incorporated number of award-winning renovations to make it a fitting place for Catholic worship, including the addition of a tabernacle, kneelers, a central aisle for liturgical processions, confessionals, a permanent altar and altar rail, Stations of the Cross, statuary, and a high altar and reredos. The building also now features an icon of its patroness, modeled after a centuries-old image associated with countless miracles. (For more information about the Chapel’s redesign, see stories in the Liturgical Arts Journal, National Catholic Register, and Canning Liturgical Arts.)

“We are honored that His Excellency would designate Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel as a pilgrimage site, and we look forward to welcoming faithful pilgrims throughout the year,” said President Paul J. O’Reilly. “The Chapel is already a fount of grace for our campus. In this year of Jubilee, may it become one for the entire diocese.”