Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 4
Thursday, December 23,1999
The Great Jubilee of the Year 2000
Questions & Answers
uestion: In Father Mike
Smith’s column, “Praying for
[ead has its roots in tradition,”
in the 10/28 issue of The
Southern Cross, he writes that
“We Catholics really do not
believe in three options: Heaven,
Hell and Purgatory, but only that
there is an entrance way to heaven
that provides for final cleansing
from sin.” Isn’t purgatory—which
he does write about—also consid
ered an option?
A nswer: No. There are only
two final and eternal options
or choices for us, and they are
heaven and hell. Purgatory is only,
as Father Smith wrote, “an
entrance way to heaven.”
When we, who have been creat
ed by the Father and redeemed by
the Son and baptized into his
death, have been completely sanc
tified by the Spirit, we will be
worthy to stand in God’s presence
in heaven; we will be saints.
But if we, though created and
redeemed, have not accepted the
Redeemer and his redemption, we
will face eternal separation from
God and from all others; this
painful state is called “hell.”
Those who have accepted the
Redeemer, but whose sanctifica
tion is not complete at the hour of
their death, will be purified and
sanctified after death by the loving
God who wants to save all people.
We call this purification “purgato
ry” and believe that our prayers,
the prayers of the Church on earth,
benefit those being purified. No
one “chooses” purgatory or opts
for it; it is a stage on the way to
heaven for those who opt for God.
The particular judgment of God
on each person at the time of death
is a foretaste of the Last Judgment,
when Christ will come to judge the
living and the dead. The bodies of
the righteous will be raised to be
reunited with their souls in the
glory of heaven, where they will
live for ever. The impious will
“rise” to eternal death and punish
ment.
At the end, purgatory will cease,
and only our two ultimate destinies
will of course remain: heaven and
hell. The stark choice between our
two ultimate destinies should spur
us on to live according to the “law
of the Spirit,” nourished by the
word and the sacraments, growing
in God’s grace, so that we may be
found worthy of a place in the
kingdom of heaven.
—DKC
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But when the fullness of time had come,
God sent his Son,
bom of a woman, bom under the law,
in order to redeem those who were
under the law,
so that we might receive adoption
as sons.
And because you are sons,
God has sent the Spirit of his Son
into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
So through God you are no longer a
slave but a son,
and if a son then an heir.
— Galatians 4:4-7
eflecting on these words from
Saint Paul, Pope John Paul II
notes that “the fullness of time”
coincides with the mystery of the
Word-becoming-flesh (In
carnation), “the mystery of the
Redemption of the world.”
Saint Paul’s presentation of the
mystery of the Incarnation in
Galatians 4:4-7 also “contains the
revelation of the mystery of the
Trinity and the continuation of the
Son’s mission in the mission of the
Holy Spirit. The Incarnation of the
Son of God, his conception and
birth, is the prerequisite for the
sending of the Holy Spirit.” And the
Spirit, sent into our hearts, cries out
to the Father, Abba\ The Apostle in
this passage “allows the fullness of
the mystery of the Redemptive
Incarnation to shine forth.”
Christmas, then, fulfills the cen
turies of preparation and begins the
whole joyous story of our redemp
tion in Christ. The celebration of
Christ’s birth is always a cause for
jubilation
The Great Jubilee of the Year
2000, proclaimed by the Holy
Father, reminds us in a special way
of what it means to live in the full
ness of time. The pope asked each
local Church to prepare for it over
the three preceding years, indicating
that the missions of the Son (1997)
and the Holy Spirit (1998) should
lead us back to the Father (1999).
And so the Diocese of Savannah
developed The Fullness of Time, a
three-year process of preparation for
the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000,
the beginning of the Third
Millennium of Christianity and the
150th anniversary of the founding of
our diocese in 1850 by Pope Pius
IX. The three years were an extend
ed “advent” of preparation for the
end of the second millennium of the
first Christmas and the beginning of
the third.
Time
Saint Paul, in line with the gener
al Judeo-Christian sense of time as
progressive, and not as an endlessly
repeating cycle, questioned the
observance of “festivals, new
moons, or sabbaths” (Colossians
2:16). Even when related to the his
tory of God’s People, these yearly,
monthly or weekly feasts “are only
a shadow of what is to come, but
the substance belongs to Christ”
0Colossians 2:17). Then what sig
nificance can Christian jubilees,
such as holy years, really have?
In the Christian vision, special
times, days, weeks or years stand as
reminders of the “fullness of time,”
which has already broken into our
world, is now and will culminate
when Christ’s return puts an end to
time.
It is central to the Christian con
ception of human history that, after
the saving event of Christ’s coming,
dying and rising, things can never be
the same again. In the New
Testament, the First Advent of Christ
is spoken of as the “fullness” of all
time. The early fathers of the Church
saw all of human history, and not
exclusively the salvation history of
the Old Testament, as a preparation
for the Gospel; hence Saint Irenaeus’
affirmation that “in a variety of
ways, God adjusted the human race
to an agreement with salvation.” The
Incarnation is the beginning and
source of the “new creation,” which
though already begun is not yet
complete.
Meantime
We live in the “meantime,” be
tween the two comings of the Lord.
The Church emphasizes time during
the season of Advent, when
Christians prepare to celebrate the
feasts of Christmas and the
(Continued on page 11)
The Fullness of the Eucharist
D uring the Jubilee Year, the Diocese of Savannah is offering a program
to carry out the Holy Father’s hope that “the Year 2000 will be
intensely Eucharistic.” The Mass, the Real Presence, the Passover back
ground of our liturgy and other topics are included. Using materials from
the Center for Eucharistic Evangelizing, this six-week series will be helpful
for Lent or another time of the liturgical year, for example, as a preparation
for the Feast of Corpus Christi on June 25, or in the fall to initiate a faith
sharing program. Introductory classes for those interested will be held at
Saint Mary on the Hill, Augusta, January 8, from 10:00 a.m.-noon and at
Saint Joseph, Waycross, January 9 from 2:00-4:00 p.m. Materials can be
obtained at these classes or later from Mrs. Cooper the Catholic Pastoral
Center, 912-238-2320.