Our Charge for the New Millennium
By Father Brendan Williams
On January 6, 2001, the Feast of the Epiphany, Pope John Paul II released his most recent Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Inuente: At the Beginning of the New Millennium (NMI). In this special document the Pope sets forth a vision for the Church in the new millennium, which will be primarily evangelical. This is how he begins his letter: “At the beginning of the new millennium, and at the close of the Great Jubilee during which we celebrated the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Jesus and a new stage of the Church’s journey begins, our hearts ring out with the words of Jesus when one day, after speaking to the crowds from Simon’s boat, he invited the Apostles “to pull out into the deep” for a catch: “Duc in altum” (Lk 5:4). Peter and his first companions trusted Christ’s words, and cast the nets. “When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish” (Lk 5:6).
“Duc in altum! These words ring out for us today, and they invite us to remember the past with gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm and to look forward to the future with confidence: ‘Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Heb 13:8).”
Thus our Holy Father sets the agenda for the Church as we begin the third millennium. He offers us Jesus’ command to the Apostles in order to remind us that the Church, by her very nature, is an evangelical community commissioned to bring the life and light of Christ to a world that is in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Surely a millennial jubilee is a unique and sacred moment in the life of the Church and we have been privileged to live through one, celebrate it and experience some of its intensity. Our Holy Father has viewed the Jubilee as the great moment of his pontificate and has pulled out all the stops to open the Church to this special moment of grace.
Central to the celebration of the Jubilee has been the theme of pilgrimage. By defining the Christian journey as “a pilgrimage to the house of the Father” (TMA par 49), the Pope set the stage for the greatest year of pilgrimages in the history of the Church. Rome alone welcomed over 30 million pilgrims while multitudes flocked to shrines and local Pilgrim Churches throughout the world. What blessings will flow from this extraordinary year we cannot begin to guess. However, if we look back one thousand years, we will get an idea of some of the byproducts of pilgrimage.
Historians now say that a unified culture was built in Europe as a result of pilgrimage to one shrine—Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. How did this come about? In the year 813 A.D. the remains of the Apostle James, the son of Zebedee, were discovered through a miraculous display of stars over his resting place—thus the name Compostela (field of stars). According to tradition, St. James preached in Spain after Pentecost. He returned to Jerusalem and was beheaded by Herod in 44 A.D. Later his disciples brought his body back to Spain but for centuries his resting place was unknown. When Pope Leo III approved the discovery of the Apostle’s remains as authentic, and Pope Calixtus attached an indulgence to the shrine, Compostela began to draw pilgrims in their thousands.
As the new millennium approached, the shrine was well known throughout Europe and the throngs began to come. Between 999 and 1002 over 500,000 pilgrims made their way to Compostela. This is remarkable for many reasons. Most amazing is the fact that one in sixty persons in Europe found their way there. This tidal wave of pilgrims meshed together, learning each other’s languages, sharing ideas, philosophies, arts, crafts, food, architecture, politics, medicines, etc. As a result of this new religious fervor and newly acquired knowledge, a new wave of building began. During the next three hundred years, over one thousand cathedrals, churches and monasteries blossomed throughout Europe bringing a new level of faith and learning to every facet of society. In these centuries we would see the birth of the great Orders such as the Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans. We would see a level of sanctity, learning and scholarship arise that gave us such illustrious Doctors of the Church such as Bernard of Clairvaux; Aquinas, Bonaventure and Anselm, whom Pope John Paul II refers to as the “great triad” of medieval philosophers; and St. Albert the Great, who represented the great advances in both the supernatural and natural sciences.
Looking back now, we can see the providential hand of God using Jubilee 1000 to begin an explosion in spiritual fervor, learning and development in Europe that would intensify the life of the Church, unify culture and leave a legacy of spiritual and intellectual riches from which we are still drawing. As we look forward to the millennium ahead, we can see the providential hand of God at work again. Our Holy Father is calling us to rebuild the culture of Christian life. During the 20th century we have been given more martyrs than all the other centuries combined. In their blood the Pope sees the seeds of faith on which the new culture will be built. Converging with the blood of martyrs in this past century has been a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Church. We have seen the great renewal in the Church culminating in the Second Vatican Council. We have seen a variety of renewal movements, including Charismatic Renewal, which have brought abundant riches to the Church. We have seen a determined preparation for and joyous celebration of the Jubilee that have set the stage for the years ahead.
There is another providential convergence that Our Holy Father has earmarked for the new Springtime of Christian Life—modern technology. Properly used, this can be an awesome instrument in bringing the Gospel literally to the ends of the earth. All of the miracles of travel, communications, industrial, agricultural and medical developments, have made the world much smaller and a better place to live. But while we use all these blessings for good, the forces of evil will be using the very same instruments to fight and destroy the Church—the weeds will not be removed from the wheat. Somehow, we have been warned of this by Christ Himself (Mtt 13:24-30). We should not then think of this new springtime in terms of triumphalism. Rather, let us prepare ourselves in spirit and in truth to withstand the forces of evil. For this battle let the word of God prepare us:
“The righteous live forever, and their reward is with the Lord; the Most High takes care of them.
Therefore they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord, because with his right hand he will cover them, and with his arm he will shield them. The Lord will take his zeal as his whole armor, and will arm all creation to repel his enemies; he will put on righteousness as a breastplate, and wear impartial justice as a helmet; he will take holiness as an invincible shield, and sharpen stern wrath for a sword, and creation will join with him to fight against his frenzied foes” (Wis 5:15-20).
If we are to fulfill this mission to the masses, therefore, and withstand the enemy, we must first fulfill our call to holiness. Our Holy Father states: “First of all, I have no hesitation in saying that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness. Was this not the ultimate meaning of the Jubilee indulgence, as a special grace offered by Christ so that the life of every baptized person could be purified and deeply renewed?...Once the Jubilee is over, we resume our normal path, but knowing that stressing holiness remains more than ever an urgent pastoral task” (NMI 30).
In the Temple, Isaiah encountered the holiness of God and heard the heavenly chant: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Is 6:3). As Isaiah encountered the utter holiness of God he was struck by his own sinfulness. Only when he was purified in the divine fire could he respond to the divine invitation: “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here I am; send me” (Is 6:8).
As with Isaiah, the Apostles and indeed every missionary since, there is no mission without first being purified, invigorated and empowered in the fire of the Holy Spirit. The call to holiness is a lifelong pilgrimage to the heart of the Holy Trinity. It is a continual journey of self-surrender through Christ who alone is holy. It is a continual striving through grace to fulfill the Lord’s command: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mtt 5:48). It is a willingness to be ever on call to lovingly respond, as Isaiah did, to the divine invitation to go forth.
For those of us who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, this is truly a time to glorify God in humble adoration and thankfulness. It is a time to count our blessings and see them as part of our Father’s providential plan for a new Gospel springtime. It is a time to “fan into flame the gift of God” (1 Tim 1:6). It is time to take ownership of our gifts, and be ready to put them to work for the building up of the Body of Christ. “Since the Spirit is our life, let us be led by the Spirit” (Gal 5:25).
Today Santiago de Compostela continues to be the most visited shrine in Christendom. Let us pray that, as this new millennium begins, we will carve out a spiritual pathway that, a thousand years from now, will still be traveled by brother and sister pilgrims on their way to our Father’s House. Duc in altum is indeed our sacred charge.
The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright (c) 1993 and 1989 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.. Used by permission. All rights reserved.