The Holy Father's Address, January 1.

The clock of history strikes an important hour: at this moment the Year 2000 begins, and we enter into a new millennium. For believers this is the year of the Great Jubilee.

A Happy New Year to all of you, men and women of every part of the world!

As we cross the threshold of the New Year I would like to knock at the door of every home, to bring to each of you my cordial good wishes: a Happy New Year to everyone in the light which shines out from Bethlehem upon the whole universe!

I wish you a year filled with peace: the peace proclaimed by the Angels on that Holy Night; the peace of Christ, who out of love became a brother to every human being!

I wish you a year filled with serenity and happiness: may you always be certain of God's love for us. As he did two thousand years ago, Christ comes today with his saving Gospel to guide the uncertain and faltering steps of peoples and nations, leading them towards a future of true hope.

I ask him to bless this moment of festivity and good wishes, that it may be the promising beginning of a new millennium filled with joy and peace. Let us enter the Year 2000 with our eyes fixed on the mystery of the Incarnation.

Christ, yesterday, today and forever.

To him belong time and the ages.

To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen!

Archbishop Chaput Jubilee Exhortation.

My dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

Each Christmas season, we reflect in a special way on God's greatest gift to us, his only Son, Jesus Christ. We celebrate the joy of His birth in a Bethlehem stable, that humble beginning through which God entered human history. And each year, we open our hearts for the Lord Jesus to be born new again in our lives.

Christmas season is always an occasion for thanksgiving and renewal. Yet this year, above all others, we should be filled with a special sense of hope. For Christmas Eve 1999, begins the Great Jubilee Year 2000, an unprecedented moment of grace for believers. In his 1994 apostolic letter, As the Third Millennium Draws Near, Pope John Paul II asked that we prepare for the Jubilee through repentance and personal conversion, so that we might enter the new millennium with commitment and joy. We're invited to break free from the shackles of consumerism, self-absorption and other forms of sinfulness which separate us from the Father.

So even if some people approach the new millennium with anxiety, we Catholics should enter it with overwhelming joy. Like the shepherds who were visited by angels on the first Christmas, we should be filled with awe and jubilation before God's boundless love and generosity. And we should be inspired to serve Him and each other with renewed zeal.

May God give you peace and bless each of you and your families during this Christmas season and throughout the Jubilee year. Be assured of my prayers, and please remember me in yours as well!