Celebrating the Great Jubilee
By Father Brendan Williams
The theme of the Jubilee, “Open Wide the Doors to Christ” speaks to the heart of this year’s extraordinary celebration. Who will forget the great events of this year beginning with the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s on Christmas Eve, the worldwide celebrations for New Year’s Eve, the year-long celebrations in Rome and in our Dioceses, the pilgrimages, especially our Holy Father’s visit to the Holy Land.
As he prepared for this journey, the Holy Father wrote in a June, 1999 letter: “To go in a spirit of prayer from one place to another, from one city to another, in the area marked especially by God’s intervention, helps us to live our life as a journey, but also gives a vivid sense of a God who has gone before us and leads us on, who Himself set out on man’s path, a God who does not look down on us from on high, but who becomes our traveling companion.”
Our Holy Father was determined to show to the world that our Christian faith has its origins not in speculative ideas but in real times, in real places and in real lives. He would emphasize that the idea of jubilee has its roots in the Old Testament and its completion and perfection in the New.
More than anyone in history, our Holy Father has linked the two Testaments through the peoples they represent. He has reached out to the Jewish people with love and affection, seeking healing and reconciliation from two millennia of hurt and division, suspicion and mistrust. He has asked for forgiveness for the sins of those Church members who over the centuries have inflicted grievous injuries in the name of the Church.
At the Western Wall—the remaining outer wall of the Temple area in Jerusalem—our Holy Father prayed intently and left a letter with this pointed prayer: “God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations. We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer. And asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant.”
Since reconciliation has been an essential feature of the Jubilee, this great pope has left no stone unturned in his quest for healing between religious groups, peoples and nations. In this desire he is thoroughly Christ-like. He has given us the lead.
The sight of Papal and Israeli flags flying together throughout the Holy Land was in itself an epic manifestation of this historic moment brought about by a man who will undoubtedly leave indelible footprints on the sands of time. The remark of Israeli novelist, Amos Oz, on the impact of this historic visit, speaks volumes: “Generations on generations of Jews would have paid I know not what to have seen what we were part of today in Jerusalem. It is an epochal turning point, a revolution of great historical consequences.”
The pilgrimage to the Holy Land emphasized to the world the central meaning of the Jubilee—the person of Christ who became incarnate and was born of the Virgin 2000 years ago. In preparing for the Jubilee our Holy Father wrote in Tertio Millennio Adveniente (TMA): “The distinctly Christological character of the Jubilee needs to be emphasized, for it will celebrate the incarnation and coming into the world of the Son of God, the mystery of salvation for all mankind” (par. 40).
Thus, Nazareth and Bethlehem became focal points in the journey to our Christian roots. In his homily at Bethlehem our Holy Father proclaimed: “The joy announced by the Angel is not a thing of the past. It is a joy for today—the eternal today of God’s salvation which embraces all time, past, present, and future. At the dawn of the new millennium, we are called to see more clearly that time has meaning because here Eternity entered history and remains with us forever…Because it is always Christmas in Bethlehem, every day is Christmas in the hearts of Christians.” The conviction that “every day is Christmas in the hearts of Christians,” gives focus and direction to our faith journey. The Christian’s heart becomes a living birthplace for Christ to be born day after day as the conversion process intensifies through the action of the Holy Spirit.
Our Holy Father holds up the Blessed Mother as our model of Christian life. “Mary, who conceived the Incarnate Word by the power of the Holy Spirit and then in the whole of her life allowed herself to be guided by his interior activity, will be contemplated and imitated…as the woman who was docile to the voice of the Spirit, ….a radiant model for those who entrust themselves with all their hearts to the promises of God” (TMA 48).
Mary’s heart was prepared from the first moment of her existence by the Holy Spirit for the reception of Christ in the Incarnation. She “bore him in her womb with love beyond all telling” (Preface: Advent II). Our Christmas Liturgy rejoices and exults (Preface I): “In the wonder of the incarnation your eternal Word has brought to the eyes of faith a new and radiant vision of your glory. In him we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see.”
We in the Charismatic Renewal, have been profoundly touched by this “radiant vision” through the experience of Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Our Holy Father is convinced that it is through surrender to the Holy Spirit that the fruits of the Incarnation will radiate. In his encyclicals and in his writings related to the Jubilee, he has repeatedly called the Church to be “docile to the working of the Holy Spirit.” It is through the Holy Spirit that our faith is brought to life, the Lordship of Jesus in our lives becomes a reality, unity is fostered and the Church is empowered with gifts and charisms that will prepare us to take part in the “new springtime of Christian life” (TA par. 18). For a fuller reflection on Baptism in the Holy Spirit as it relates to the Jubilee, I refer you to Walter Matthews’ excellent booklet, Lift Your Voice, the Year of Jubilee, available from Chariscenter USA.
By a blessed coincidence, this year’s New Jersey Charismatic Conference coincided with the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25th. It was a special privilege for me to preside and preach at the Mass that afternoon. In a very profound way we relived the mystery of the Incarnation and entered into the wonder of Mary who “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk. 2:19). Through the power of the Holy Spirit Mary conceived our Savior. In the Holy Spirit she would contemplate the awesome mysteries of our redemption. Empowered by the Holy Spirit she would stand by the Cross and join her beloved Son as He offered Himself to the Father. With the disciples she would witness the fruits of the Cross and Resurrection in the birth of the Church at Pentecost.
During that Mass there was a distinct sense of Mary’s loving, maternal presence. It was as if she were inviting us to surrender more deeply to the Holy Spirit so that we could be caught up more intensely in the mystery that our Holy Father describes as the renewal of cosmic order. “Thanks to the Word, the world of creatures appears as a ‘cosmos,’ an ordered universe. And it is the same Word, who by taking flesh, renews the cosmic order of creation” (TMA 3).
The Incarnation was a radical intervention of God to counteract the radical intrusion of sin and its effects on the human race. The journey of holiness is a daily call to surrender our disordered natures to the new order brought about in the Incarnate Word. It is a journey from chaos to cosmos, from darkness to light, from sin to grace, from bondage to freedom, from isolation and abandonment to unity in the Holy Trinity, from hatred to love, from bitterness and brokenness to forgiveness and healing, from sadness to joy, from disobedient and rebellious pride to humble self-surrender to the Divine Will, from selfishness to caring and self-giving, from stifling self-absorption to joyful witnessing to the power of the Gospel.
Our Holy Father has given us the lead as a brilliant light in a world of darkness. In his meticulous preparation for and his dramatic celebration of this Year of Jubilee, he has offered humanity an invitation to discover the power and mystery of the Incarnation and celebrate its awesome reality. Few alive today have witnessed the effects of sin as he has in the hellish worlds of Nazism and Communism. Yet this experience has been turned into a major force for good. Today he is without doubt the world’s most determined defender of human dignity and human rights,. and is the most articulate commentator on the flawed philosophies that have led to degradation, slavery and death. From the world mired in the “culture of death” he invites humankind to come and share in the liberating power of the Gospel of Life.
As men and women of the Church who have been touched in a special way by the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, let us follow our Holy Father’s lead and become all the more ardent witnesses to the Gospel. Let us share what our Holy Father cites as “the vigor and fruits of Renewal” in bringing to fruition his vision and prayer for that new springtime of Christian life.