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THE GREAT JUBILEE This week, I had lunch with a couple of high school students, and one of them asked if it was true that the Holy Father had been talking about the end of the world in the Year 2000. Actually, quite the opposite is true. The Holy Father, in Tertio Millennio Adveniente, talks about the Year 2000
as being the springtime of the Church. That is the Catholic view of the celebration of the
Great Jubilee. We are not caught up in some kind of millennialist view of the end
times. Jesus tells us that we don't know the time or the hour: only the Father knows that.
So we should always be ready. The three years of preparation that the Holy Father declares in Tertio Millennio Adveniente are a call to repentance and conversion, so that we might begin again. I think that the opening of the pastoral center here at the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization can be tied into this concept. This is a new beginning. Even though we have only been here a couple of days, my perception is that the people who work for the Church here are excited about this move. They see it as a fresh start, not only in terms of new paint on the walls, but spiritually and psychologically. Moving into a place that has been associated with theological and spiritual development is a wonderful thing, in part, because that is what we are about here. It is important for the diocese to reflect on how we might use this property in the future. This is not only a place where the chancery, the bishop's office, is located, but a center of renewal. We've begun initial discussions about the possibility of re-opening a seminary here. We are talking about a theological school not only for the formation of priests, but for lay ministry and diaconal formation. I've been considering moving here myself. Living here would be a sign of the diocesan commitment to make this place a center of archdiocesan life. The naming of this place as a center for evangelization is not accidental. Our world is different than it was when we entered the 20th century. As we approach the Year 2000, we have quite a different experience of the world and the Church. The world that's around us requires a new kind of evangelization. We should seek to be like the wise steward in the Gospel who combines the old and the new in such a way that Jesus Christ is proclaimed clearly -- without compromise -- in a way that attracts the modern mind to say, "Yes! There is the answer to my longing and my questioning." As we prepare for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, I hope the people of the archdiocese, using all the God-given talents present among us, can work together to respond to the grace of the Holy Spirit, who is making all things new. A pastoral letter on preaching Jesus Christ to all creation December 24, 1997 IV. Toward the Great Jubilee As I write this pastoral letter, the Church has begun her second year of immediate preparation for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, as outlined in the apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II, As the Third Millennium Draws Near. My sincere hope and intention is for the Church in northern Colorado to be ready to celebrate the fullness of Jubilee, now that the transition of my predecessor, Archbishop J. Francis Stafford, to Rome is complete and my own arrival and opening months of ministry have concluded. Jubilee is not merely a calendar date. It is much more than that. It is a holy year of conversion, forgiveness and renewal rooted in Hebrew Scripture and celebrated by the Church throughout her history -- but never more urgently or significantly than in 2000. Jubilee is the manifestation and celebration of joy which God pours into the hearts of those who believe the Good News and trust His promises. It is a joy to be shared by all people and with every nation. It is the joy which filled John the Baptist in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth; the joy of Mary's heart as she sang her Magnificat; the joy the shepherds experienced as they beheld the child in the manger and told everyone of the angel's message; the joy of Simeon as he encountered the child who fulfills God's promise of salvation. It is the joy of the man blind from birth who receives his sight from Jesus; the joy of Mary Magdalen meeting her Rabboni in the garden of the resurrection; and the joy of the travelers on the road to Emmaus who recognize the Risen Lord in the breaking of the bread. Jubilee is Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and the Return of the Lord in Glory. Jubilee is Eucharist -- the fullness of Word and sacrament, worship in Spirit and in truth. In our archdiocesan preparations, I wish to acknowledge first, and thank in a special way, the discernment done by the Emmaus Committee throughout 1995 and 1996. Their recommendations for preparing for the Great Jubilee remain a valuable resource for the local Church. I ask all parishes to review the Emmaus Plan's excellent materials on the Jubilee and adapt these wherever possible to their particular needs. In light of the Emmaus recommendations, I further ask all pastors who have not already done so to appoint a millennium/Jubilee coordinator for their parishes no later than March 25, 1998, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, with the task of bringing the message of As the Third Millennium Draws Near alive for the local community. On that date also, it is my intention to appoint an archdiocesan Jubilee committee to assist my office in our Church-wide Jubilee preparations, and I welcome the recommendations of the people, through their pastors, of suitable persons to carry out this work. I ask our archdiocesan communications staff -- the Denver Catholic Register, El Pueblo Catolico, The Catholic Hour, along with our radio, newsletter and internet efforts -- to begin, with the help of my office, an ongoing, weekly presentation of the themes of Jubilee preparation, continuing through the year 2000. Many very useful materials on the millennium already exist at the national level. It is my hope that our communications tools, beginning in January 1998, will refocus even more clearly on the task of evangelization. An important part of this refocusing will be providing parishes with an awareness of the resources available to prepare fully for the Jubilee. In like manner, I ask our archdiocesan education staff -- again, in concert with my office -- to provide our schools, parish millennium coordinators and parish religious education programs with the resources they need to integrate Jubilee preparation into their apostolic work with Catholics of all ages. It is my hope that in addition to pilgrimages and gatherings of Jubilee celebration, various lectures, seminars and courses of study on critical documents of Vatican II, the work of Pope John Paul II, and other materials relevant to the Jubilee will be made available to the general public. But our Jubilee preparations will neither succeed nor fail at the archdiocesan level. They can only bear fruit if they are lived by our people, clergy and Religious at the parish level. Therefore, in whatever we do to answer the Holy Father's call -- no matter how elaborate or simple -- we must never misunderstand our Jubilee preparations as just another program or another pastoral burden. The new millennium should be a new encounter with the person of Jesus Christ; it is He whose birth it marks. In that light, I ask pastors of the archdiocese to open their parishes to all which the Holy Spirit desires. New ecclesial movements and charisms are works of the Holy Spirit and signs of Jubilee; it is my hope that pastors will welcome these groups and movements so that our people, families and parishes may blaze with the fire of the new evangelization. Radical missionary zeal is radical availability to the Holy Spirit. This is the foundation of Jubilee. This is the faith and witness of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the New Advent. She is the perfect disciple, the model of every virtue. She is our guide star to the Jubilee. As we resume our journey to the Great Jubilee, I entrust this local Church and all our plans and aspirations to her maternal intercession. May God bless each of you and your families this Christmas season. May He
fill you with the joy of the shepherds throughout the coming year. And I ask you to pray
for me, your brother, as I pray daily for you. River of Mercy A pastoral letter to the people of God of northern Colorado on conscience, reconciliation and the Great Jubilee December 2, 1998
I. MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY How do we lay claim to a joy that seems so often contradicted by the sorrows and confusions of daily life? The answer is, we can't lay claim to this joy — not without a radical conversion of heart. This is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ. But because of Christ's coming, it is within our grasp. Therefore, what I want to suggest is that today, right now, is exactly the "acceptable time" to receive the joy of the Great Jubilee. The way is open, and the moment is at hand. But the cost of passage is conversion, a change in the direction of our lives at their root. We need to see with new eyes, illumined by a new light. We need to turn away from our selfishness, our pride, our distractions and false freedoms, and toward the real freedom, the freedom only found in Jesus Christ. Advent 1998 brings us to the threshold of a new millennium. The Holy Father describes it as a "threshold of hope." The liturgical year we begin (1999) — designated by John Paul II as the year of reconciliation with the Father, bearing fruit in the virtue of charity or love — is God's invitation to the conversion we need, and the final step toward the Jubilee. So let us turn to what crossing that threshold requires. 22. The healthy conscience neither withholds indictment where real sin exists, nor indicts where there is no sin. What brings balance to our lives in Christ, is love. The key to right conscience, to repentance, to conversion and to reconciliation — in fact, the key to understanding and celebrating the Great Jubilee — is an overriding trust in God and His love for us, which is greater than the greatest sin and stronger than death.
IV. LIVING THE GREAT JUBILEE "Oh God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is" (Ps 63:1). 23. Each of us is born with a yearning in our souls for "something more." We have a natural longing for happiness, but we cannot be happy alone. We were made for wholeness, for fraternity with one another, and for communion with our Creator. This is what Augustine means in his words from the Confessions: "Our hearts are restless, [God,] until they rest in thee." This reminds us of the second, and even more important, task of conscience. John the Baptizer not only cried out against the iniquity of Israel; he also pointed toward her Deliverer: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (Jn 1:29). In like manner, a right conscience not only alerts us to what is wrong in our actions, but also urges us toward the One who is beautiful, life-giving and true. Like Augustine, our hearts are restless, and like the psalmist, our souls are thirsty, for the abundant life which only reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ can bring. 24. In his 1994 apostolic letter, As the Third Millennium Draws Near (Tertio Millennio Adveniente), John Paul II defines "the joy of every Jubilee" — but especially the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 — as "above all a joy based upon the forgiveness of sins, the joy of conversion" (32). And elsewhere in the same document, he notes that "preparing for the Year 2000 has become . . . a key of my pontificate" (23). 25. The importance of the Great Jubilee is this: It is a countersign to the sinfulness of our age. We live at a pivotal moment in history, a time of unsurpassed achievement and unsurpassed inhumanity. We're closing a century which has served as a great battleground between the "culture of life" and the "culture of death." Around the world, humanity struggles for freedom and dignity. At the same time, it methodically creates the instruments of its own destruction. In contrast to this culture of death, the Great Jubilee calls us to turn again to God's Son; and it lifts up His cross so that we might see and believe in our salvation — "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" 26. Our role in this drama is simple, but crucial. The future is not determined; we co-author it with God. As John Paul II observes, ". . . sin, in the proper sense, is always a personal act, since it is an act of freedom on the part of an individual person, and not properly of a group or community" (RP, 16.). In a similar way, the choice to be virtuous is also a personal act. Each of us has free will. We are each a seed planted by the Sower to bring forth justice and reconciliation, through the power of the cross of Christ, by our personal actions and the witness of our lives. We are each — and especially together — the Gospel leaven which can begin to change the "culture of death" from within. 27. In the light of the Great Jubilee, says the Holy Father, "the whole of Christian history appears to us as a single river into which many tributaries pour their waters. The Year 2000 invites us to gather with renewed fidelity and ever deeper communion along the banks of this great river: the river of Revelation, of Christianity and the Church, a river which flows through human history starting from the event which took place at Nazareth and then at Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. This is truly the 'river' with which its 'streams,' in the expression of the Psalm, 'makes glad the city of God' (46:4)" (TMA, 25). 28. I began these pastoral
reflections by asking: How do we lay claim to an "Advent joy" that seems so
often contradicted by the sorrows and confusions of daily life? We know the answer now: by
drinking from that river of mercy which is God's free gift of love and forgiveness in
Jesus Christ; and bringing that same love, that same forgiveness, to others. In the desert
of our sometimes sinful hearts, in the desert of our often sinful world, this river of
God's mercy is the river which brings life.
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