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The Southern Cross, Page 8
Thursday, January 13, 2000
CNS illustration by Anthony De Feo
Mapping the jubilee year 2000
By David Walsh
Catholic News Service
I
.n many ways it’s almost a
relief that there are so few gov
ernment extravaganzas planned
during the millennium year.
Secular celebrations of the mil
lennium are like having a birth
day party and refusing to invite
the guest of honor. How can we
celebrate the jubilee of the birth
of Christ and studiously avoid
any mention of him?
On Jan. 1, we entered the
jubilee year of the birth of
Christ, a great holy year, as
the pope has proclaimed it.
But what has that got to do
with the majority of human be
ings who today are not Chris
tian? Perhaps for Christians
that is the big challenge to
which they must respond over
the coming year. It is a time
for a new evangelization.
Again, Pope John Paul II
has led the way by insisting
that the preparation begin at
home. He dedicated the years
preceding the great jubilee as a
preparation — a time for re
pentance and purification
when even the church’s people
must face up to historical fail
ings.
Only through sincere sor
row for sin and prayer for di
vine forgiveness do we become
ready to greet the Lord anew.
We cannot bring the good
news of his coming to others unless
we have encountered him ourselves.
Then we will have the confidence to
be his witnesses to the ends of the
earth, because it is no longer our
efforts but the Holy Spirit within
who teaches us what to say.
We become more ready to affirm
Christ’s presence within all that is
good in our time.
■ ■ ■
Everywhere that human beings
are open to the pull of goodness,
Christ is there. Such is the chal
lenge of the church in the new mil
lennium defined by a global plural
ism of civilizations that now must
live together.
Somehow this gift of diversity in
human history is part of the
Father’s providential plan. It is al
most as if we are being called to
recognize the inexhaustible richness
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litical language of human
rights, reason carries assump
tions within itself about the or
der of creation. For example:
—Reason must base itself
on faith in the natural world’s
regularity — that reason is a
reliable instrument for that
world’s exploration.
—Equally, reason must as
sume that human beings are
sources of infinite worth in
themselves and never to be
treated merely as a means to
something else.
Yet neither of those assump
tions can be demonstrated. They
derive historically from the
Christian background of Western
history which is centered in the
incarnation.
By God’s becoming man we get
the deepest affirmation of the or
der of creation and of the human
person’s value. And even the
secular world points toward
Christ as the deepest confirma
tion of the faith that sustains it.
There is no necessity for
Christians to assume a trium
phal attitude in light of such a
realization. That was not the
way of Jesus of Nazareth. But
the recognition of the centrality
of Christ to the whole world
should provide an additional
confidence in proclaiming the
of God who reveals himself in so
many different ways throughout the
human race. Christ is the truth to
ward which they all point; in a
sense, all of them contribute toward
that realization.
One way of thinking about the
plurality of world religions is the
way Christianity always has
thought about the faith from which
it itself emerged. Just as the Jewish
Bible became the Old Testament of
Christianity, so we might think of
the other religions that are also
rooted in God’s drawing of the hu
man heart as another kind of Old
Testament.
When Christ came he did not
abolish the Jewish law and the
prophets but brought them to their
fulfillment. In the same way, he is
also the fulfillment of all that is
good in every faith tradition by
which human beings
have lived through
out history.
They are not ren
dered obsolete by the
New Testament.
They are raised up in
significance and pro
vide an interpretive
richness through which we recog
nize who Jesus is. Just as the New
Testament writers needed the Old to
find the symbols to represent
Christ, so the treasures of world
spirituality can help to unfold the
mystery disclosed in Christ and
never exhausted.
But what of the purely secular
civilization of the modern world
whose influence has become global?
There too Christ is present.
Whether expressed in the form of
modern science or in the moral-po-
verywhere that hu
man beings are open to
the pull of goodness, Christ is there. Such is
the challenge of the church in the new
millennium defined by a global pluralism of
civilizations that now must live together.”
The jubilee year is a time to celebrate. Writing of the jubilee, Pope John Paul II said, “Let no one behave like the
elder brother in the Gospel parable who refuses to enter the house to celebrate.”
William Thompson, a theologian at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa., referred to this in a recent speech.
Stress, he suggested, can keep people from celebrating joyfully.
Two typical reactions to stress are:
—Inertia, “listlessness, an inability to act with much enthusiasm.”
—Hectic activity. “Just keep on going until we drop. Or clutter our days.”
There’s not much joy in either approach, Thompson observed. Both are born of overlooking God’s role and
believing that we must be able to “fix” things.
Thompson spoke to priests, but I’d like to apply his observations to others.
A jubilee goal is to be configured to Jesus Christ, the theologian indicated. Jesus “had joy,” among other
qualities. He wasn’t listless or hectic.
W lot is needed is inner joyful serenity, Thompson suggested. This frees us to confidently see ourselves in
perspective, and to reflect upon the shape of our lives in a new millennium.
2 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!
great jubilee’s significance.
Far from being a stranger at his
own year-long birthday party, Christ
is central to everything going on —
whether recognized or not by the rev
elers. To the extent that the advent of
God within time was history’s turning
point, the message is directed toward
all human beings — past, present and
future.
St. Thomas Aquinas formulated
it by saying that Christ is the head
of all humanity, even those who
never had heard of him. That is the
great mystery celebrated as we
mark the great millennial cycle of
Christ’s birth.
(Walsh, professor of politics at The
Catholic University of America, is au
thor of “The Third Millennium: Re
flections on Faith and Reason,”
Georgetown University Press, 1999).
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