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BELEIVE THAT the Catholic Church is on the verge of
an incredible new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In the same
way that we now regard Vatican II, twenty years from now
Catholics are going to look back at Jubilee 2000 as the
beginning of an extraordinary time in the life of the
Church. Jubilee 2000 will mark the time when the Father's
love and power transformed the lives of the Catholic
laity.
 I
had heard a great deal about the forthcoming Jubilee, but to
be honest had not paid it a great deal of attention. While I
heard John Paul II proclaiming it, and my pastor certainly
isn't shy about preaching it, I just could not see how the
Jubilee would be important in my life. A few extra masses,
some preaching maybe but that was about it. The challenges
of the present day seemed much more urgent. Then I began to
take a closer look at the Jubilee and tie it to some other
events that are happening around us and things began to look
a lot different. Now I cannot wait to see what God is going
to do.
There
are several reasons for my excitement. The first is the
obvious one -- the Church is preaching it. Pope John Paul II
is spending a lot of time and effort proclaiming the
Jubilee, almost to the point that it is the single unifying
event of his pontificate. The Father both inspires and
honours such themes, especially in the Pope. If God has put
the Jubilee into the heart of Christianity's greatest
leader, he has a reason for it. The last time something like
this happened we got Vatican II out of it. Just look at how
that changed things.
The
world is always in need of conversion and the Holy Spirit is
always working to bring it about. Yet it seems that the time
we live in is more in need of it than ever. People now
commonly refer to our age as 'post Christian'. Morality has
given way to relativistic ethics, wherein right and wrong
depend upon the situation or past experience, not the
purpose of God. Our culture has lost the sense of sin, of
right and wrong. At the same time our society now condones
the execution of the innocent for reasons of convenience
(abortion) and is moving towards extending this philosophy
to other venues (euthanasia). This type of thinking reminds
me of Herod's response to the birth of Jesus. In order to
protect his throne (convenience) he massacred many young
children in his kingdom. Paradoxically, the teachings of the
Church have never been more clear, forthright and available
to the faithful. For this the Church faces persecution from
without and, often enough, criticism from within. Attacks by
the world always provoke a response from the Father, who
with sorrowing heart will work to restore humanity by
pouring out his Spirit to foster repentance and
conversion.
Persecution
of Christianity is rampant in other cultures as well. In
fact it would be fair to say that Christians have rarely
been as persecuted as we are today. We live in a time of
great martyrdom. Many of our brothers and sisters have given
their lives in witness to their faith. Pope John Paul II
drew attention to this new martydom in his Apostolic Letter
Tertio Millennio Adveniente and pointed out the need to
record it. Persecution and the blood of the martyrs always
prepare the way for conversion.
Pope
John Paul II has pointed out another major sign of impending
renewal -- the Second Vatican Council. Most of us would
agree that the Council changed the way we relate to our
Church. There are a few things about it we may have missed,
however. The Council had quite an impact and seemed very
sudden. Because of this we tend to see it as a dividing
point, "then and now" as it were. It is more accurate to see
it as a significant waypoint in a long process. The Council
would not have looked anything like it did without the Holy
Spirit preparing the Church through the inspired teachings
of successive pontificates. The other thing is that the
event of the Council itself follows a historical pattern.
The Church has experienced many different means of renewal
over the centuries. Quite often the renewal starts with
structural changes implemented from the top which prepare
the way for a later wave of change within the laity.
There
is a tendency in secular circles to portray the Church as
having peaked sometime in the early modern era and then
declining slowly to the present day, when the decline has
accelerated. Nothing could be further from reality. Rather,
in terms of spirituality the Church has been growing over
the centuries. The growth has not been uniform, but more
like a steadily ascending series of peaks and valleys. Even
through the twentieth century there have been several spikes
of renewal. It seems that there is a continuous cycle of
inspiration from the Holy Spirit, an outburst of spiritual
devotion, then a period of relative quiet before the next
cycle. In each cycle the Church learns something more about
responding to the Father. It can get confusing because
inspiration will come at different times in different ways
in different parts of the world. For example, sometimes
renewal has started with ecclesial reform and then moved to
the laity, other times lay renewal has preceded structural
reform. Thus there is usually a peak somewhere within the
Church, but rarely in all of it.
Sometimes
the Father will move his renewing Spirit across the whole
Church. These are times of great evangelization and piety
that radically transform how the Church in general and the
laity in particular relate to Jesus. Interestingly, these
seem to happen during times of structural and technological
change in the world. A couple of better known examples are
the era of St. Francis, who was only one of a startling
number of saints in that time, and the religious fervor that
gripped Europe during the evangelization of Africa and Asia
in the nineteenth century. These are only two of several
such events that we rarely hear of today.
The
signs indicate that we are already in just such a major
outpouring of the Spirit. The way is being prepared through
the shedding of holy blood. There are several renewal
"spikes" already moving through the Church and new ones
coming. Ecclesial reform has already taken place and the
teachings of the Church are clear and available. The Pope is
calling it forth in prayer and teaching that is both
inspired and prophetic, just as Pope John XXIII called forth
Vatican II. To put it in scriptural terms, the harvest is
ready.
Catholics
face a tremendously exciting time. We also face several
challenges. The Church was created in front of thousands of
Jewish believers on Pentecost. Despite the fact that these
people were devout and yearned for God to move, all but a
few thousand dismissed what they saw because it did not fit
their preconceived ideas of what God should be like.
Some however, laughed it off. "They
have been drinking too much new wine," they said.
(Acts 2:13)
Jesus
warned us that this would happen. Several parables teach
about being prepared for the coming of God. In the parable
of the wedding attendants, ten attendants wait for the
bridegroom. Five have brought extra oil for their lamps,
five have not. Because the bridegroom is late, the unready
five have to go and get oil. They return too late and cannot
enter the wedding feast. The parable ends with an admonition
to stay alert and ready, for we do not know the hour of his
coming. One way to look at this parable is to call the fire
in the lamps 'expectant faith' and the oil the 'decisions
for Christ' that we must make to keep our faith from being
dimmed by the cares of our lives. If we are always preparing
and seeking God, then our faith will show us Jesus and the
action of the Spirit, however different it may seem. If not,
then we run the risk of dismissing his action as not
important to our lives. In that case the wedding feast will
indeed be closed to us for we will have rejected it despite
the Father's best efforts! The Father will still love us and
we will still be his children, but we will have missed a
tremendous blessing that he wanted to give us.
Pope
John Paul II has shown us how to prepare for Jubilee 2000.
The Church as a whole has embarked on a three year
preparation, centering each year on one person of the
Trinity and what that means in our lives. The focus was on
Jesus in 1997, the Holy Spirit in 1998, and the Father in
1999.
As
a Church and as individuals, we must start with a
recognition of our continuing need for God and how we have
fallen short in our response to his love. We need to
recognize our sinfulness. As we approach Jesus with an
attitude of humility, we can take steps to deepen our faith
and undertake an ongoing education, or catechises. The
church provides us with the teaching we need through the
Bible, the papal letters, our bishop and the Catechism. This
teaching will lead us to a renewed appreciation of the gulf
between man and God, and Jesus' action to bridge that gulf.
Gratitude then leads us to seek out God and what he is
doing. In other words, we need to learn how to recognize the
Holy Spirit and what he is doing now. This is a gift from
the Father. Just as Pope John XXIII asked the Holy Spirit to
come into the Church and renew it through Vatican II, we
need to ask the Spirit to deepen his presence in our own
lives. Finally, we will recognize that conversion is not a
one time event, but rather a continuing process. We are on a
journey and we need to seek the Father's help every day.
Only the grace of God can see us through.
Jesus
will free us and show us the Father's love. That love will
change us and change how we deal with the people around us.
True social justice is not a cause, but rather a
relationship.
Jesus
told a parable about a man who went out into a fields one
day and stumbled across something he did not expect to find,
an incredibly valuable pearl. He went away, sold everything
he had, and bought the field that had the pearl in it. That
is how we will be when we prepare for Jubilee 2000.
Somewhere along the way we will stumble across something we
did not really expect to find -- just how much the Father
loves us and how real and practical that love really is.
When we find a pearl like that, it will change us.
Jesus
is doing something wonderful and he wants us to be part of
it. I can hardly wait. How about you?
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