Looking at Christ

At the close of the Jubilee Year, John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte. The important highlights of the Holy Year. “Christianity is grace, it is the wonder of a God who puts Himself on the same level as the creature He has made”

by ANDREA TORNIELLI

With the solemn signing of the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte in St. Peter’s Square after the closing of the Holy Door on January 6th, John Paul II once again threw the Church “off balance.” At the end of a Jubilee marked by practically flawless organization and attended by veritably oceanic crowds, the Pope urged people not to yield to a triumphant attitude. Though the Pope feels gratitude at an event like World Youth Day that exceeded all expectations, and at other key moments of the Holy Year, he does not immediately draw operative consequences from them, but asks the entire Church to “put out into the deep” (Duc in altum!), starting with essential things, with everyday life, calling everyone to holiness in the most minor and ordinary circumstances.
The letter takes a confidential tone; more than a Pope he seems to be a pastor confiding his hopes and reflections in his parishioners. Thus he reveals that “I have often stopped to look at the long queues of pilgrims waiting patiently to go through the Holy Door. In each of them,” he writes, “I tried to imagine the story of a life, made up of joys, worries, sufferings; the story of someone whom Christ had met and who, in dialogue with Him, was setting out again on a journey of hope.” The Pope is grateful above all for what happened during the year 2000: “Christianity is grace, it is the wonder of a God who is not satisfied with creating the world and man, but puts Himself on the same level as the creature He has made… Yes, the Jubilee has made us realize that two thousand years of history have passed without diminishing the freshness of that ‘today,’ when the angels proclaimed to the shepherds the marvelous event of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.”
Speaking about World Youth Day, John Paul II called young people “a special gift of the Spirit of God.” The Pope’s gaze is not at all pessimistic, despite the weaknesses that characterize youth: “Sometimes when we look at the young, with the problems and weaknesses that characterize them in contemporary society, we tend to be pessimistic. The Jubilee of Youth, however, changed that, telling us that young people, whatever their possible ambiguities, have a profound longing for those genuine values which find their fullness in Christ.”
After reviewing the important highlights of the Holy Year, John Paul II explained that the “core” of the heritage of the Jubilee is “the contemplation of the face of Christ.” “Now we must look ahead,” says the Pope, “we must ‘put out into the deep’… it is important, however, that what we propose, with the help of God, should be profoundly rooted in contemplation and prayer. Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of ‘doing for the sake of doing.’ We must resist this temptation by trying ‘to be’ before trying ‘to do.’”
In the second chapter of the letter, entitled, “A Face to Contemplate,” John Paul II explains that “the men and women of our own day–often perhaps unconsciously–ask believers not only to ‘speak’ of Christ, but in a certain sense to ‘show’ Him to them. ... At the end of the Jubilee, as we go back to our ordinary routine, storing in our hearts the treasures of this very special time, our gaze is more than ever firmly set on the face of the Lord.” He adds that “we cannot come to the fullness of contemplation of the Lord’s face by our own efforts alone, but by allowing grace to take us by the hand. Only the experience of silence and prayer offers the proper setting for the growth and development of a true… knowledge of that mystery.”
In the third chapter, entitled, “Starting Afresh from Christ,” the Pope asks, “What must we do?” “We put the question with trusting optimism, but without underestimating the problems we face. We are certainly not seduced by the naive expectation that, faced with the great challenges of our time, we shall find some magic formula. No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which He gives us: ‘I am with you!’ It is not therefore a matter of inventing a ‘new program.’ The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ Himself, who is to be known, loved, and imitated, so that in Him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with Him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem.
John Paul II puts this in concrete terms by issuing a call to holiness. “At first glance, it might seem almost impractical to recall this elementary truth as the foundation of the pastoral planning in which we are involved at the start of the new millennium. Can holiness ever be ‘planned’?… In fact, to place pastoral planning under the heading of holiness is a choice filled with consequences. It implies the conviction that, since Baptism is a true entry into the holiness of God through incorporation into Christ and the indwelling of His Spirit, it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity.” In this sense, the Pope reminds us that “this ideal of perfection must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible only for a few ‘uncommon heroes’ of holiness.”
In the paragraph entitled “The Primacy of Grace,” he says, “If in the planning that awaits us we commit ourselves more confidently to a pastoral activity that gives personal and communal prayer its proper place, we shall be observing an essential principle of the Christian view of life: the primacy of grace. There is a temptation which perennially besets every spiritual journey and pastoral work: that of thinking that the results depend on our ability to act and to plan. God of course asks us really to cooperate with His grace. But it is fatal to forget that ‘without Christ we can do nothing’”.
Now that the situation of a “Christian society” has waned even in the countries evangelized centuries ago, “today we must courageously face a situation,” says the Pope, “which is becoming increasingly diversified and demanding, in the context of ‘globalization’ and of the consequent new and uncertain mingling of peoples and cultures.” Our passion for mission “cannot be left to a group of ‘specialists’ but must involve the responsibility of all the members of the People of God. Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep Him for themselves, they must proclaim Him.”
Speaking of religious dialogue, finally, John Paul II cited Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s recent declaration Dominus Iesus. The Pope reminds us that “dialogue, however, cannot be based on religious indifferentism, and we Christians are in duty bound to bear clear witness to the hope that is within us. We should not fear that it will be considered an offense to the identity of others what is rather the joyful proclamation of a gift.”

Passages from the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte by the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II to the episcopate, clergy, and faithful at the end of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000
Christianity is grace, it is the wonder of a God who is not satisfied with creating the world and man, but puts Himself on the same level as the creature He has made and, after speaking on various occasions and in different ways through His prophets, “in these last days... has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1-2). … Two thousand years have gone by, but sinners in need of mercy–and who is not?–still experience the consolation of that “today” of salvation which on the Cross opened the gates of the Kingdom of God to the repentant thief: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43). ...
Christianity is a religion rooted in history! It was in the soil of history that God chose to establish a covenant with Israel and so prepare the birth of the Son from the womb of Mary “in the fullness of time” (Gal 4:4). Understood in His divine and human mystery, Christ is the foundation and center of history, He is its meaning and ultimate goal. It is in fact through Him, the Word and image of the Father, that “all things were made” (Jn 1:3; cf. Col 1:15). His incarnation, culminating in the Paschal Mystery and the gift of the Spirit, is the pulsating heart of time, the mysterious hour in which the Kingdom of God came to us (cf. Mk 1:15), indeed took root in our history, as the seed destined to become a great tree (cf. Mk 4:30-32). …
“We wish to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21). This request, addressed to the Apostle Philip by some Greeks who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover, echoes spiritually in our ears too during this Jubilee Year. Like those pilgrims of two thousand years ago, the men and women of our own day–often perhaps unconsciously–ask believers not only to “speak” of Christ, but in a certain sense to “show” Him to them. ...
Our witness, however, would be hopelessly inadequate if we ourselves had not first contemplated His face. The Great Jubilee has certainly helped us to do this more deeply. At the end of the Jubilee, as we go back to our ordinary routine, storing in our hearts the treasures of this very special time, our gaze is more than ever firmly set on the face of the Lord.
The contemplation of Christ’s face cannot fail to be inspired by all that we are told about Him in Sacred Scripture, which from beginning to end is permeated by His mystery, prefigured in a veiled way in the Old Testament and revealed fully in the New, so that Saint Jerome can vigorously affirm, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” Remaining firmly anchored in Scripture, we open ourselves to the action of the Spirit (cf. Jn 15:26) from whom the sacred texts derive their origin, as well as to the witness of the Apostles (cf. Jn 15:27), who had a first-hand experience of Christ, the Word of Life: they saw Him with their eyes, heard Him with their ears, touched Him with their hands (cf. 1 Jn 1:1).
What we receive from them is a vision of faith based on precise historical testimony, a true testimony which the Gospels, despite their complex redaction and primarily catechetical purpose, pass on to us in an entirely trustworthy way.
The Gospels do not claim to be a complete biography of Jesus in accordance with the canons of modern historical science. From them, nevertheless, the face of the Nazarene emerges with a solid historical foundation. The Evangelists took pains to represent Him on the basis of trustworthy testimonies which they gathered. …
The crowds are able to sense a definitely exceptional religious dimension to this rabbi who speaks in such a spellbinding way, but they are not able to put Him above those men of God who had distinguished the history of Israel. Jesus is really far different! It is precisely this further step of awareness, concerning as it does the deeper level of His being, which He expects from those who are close to Him: “But who do you say that I am?” (Mt 16:15). Only the faith proclaimed by Peter, and with Him by the Church in every age, truly goes to the heart and touches the depth of the mystery: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). ...
The Word and the flesh, the divine glory and His dwelling among us! It is in the intimate and inseparable union of these two aspects that Christ’s identity is to be found, in accordance with the classic formula of the Council of Chalcedon (451): “One person in two natures.” The person is that, and that alone, of the Eternal Word, the Son of the Father. The two natures, without any confusion whatsoever, but also without any possible separation, are the divine and the human.
We know that our concepts and our words are limited. The formula, though always human, is nonetheless carefully measured in its doctrinal content, and it enables us, albeit with trepidation, to gaze in some way into the depths of the mystery. Yes, Jesus is true God and true man! Like the Apostle Thomas, the Church is constantly invited by Christ to touch His wounds–to recognize, that is, the fullness of His humanity. ...
If today, because of the rationalism found in so much of contemporary culture, it is, above all, faith in the divinity of Christ that has become problematic, in other historical and cultural contexts there was a tendency to diminish and do away with the historical concreteness of Jesus’ humanity. But for the Church’s faith it is essential and indispensable to affirm that the Word truly “became flesh” and took on every aspect of humanity, except sin (cf. Heb 4:15).
On the other hand, this abasement of the Son of God is not an end in itself; it tends rather toward the full glorification of Christ, even in His humanity. ...
“Your face, O Lord, I seek” (Ps 27:8). The ancient longing of the Psalmist could receive no fulfillment greater and more surprising than the contemplation of the face of Christ. God has truly blessed us in Him and has made “His face to shine upon us” (Ps 67:1). At the same time, God and man that He is, He reveals to us also the true face of man, “fully revealing man to man himself.”…
This divine-human identity emerges forcefully from the Gospels, which offer us a range of elements that make it possible for us to enter that “frontier zone” of the mystery, represented by Christ’s self-awareness. …
However valid it may be to maintain that, because of the human condition which made Him grow “in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2:52), His human awareness of His own mystery would also have progressed to its fullest expression in His glorified humanity… in Gethsemane and on Golgotha Jesus’ human awareness will be put to the supreme test. In contemplating Christ’s face, we confront the most paradoxical aspect of His mystery, as it emerges in His last hour, on the Cross. The mystery within the mystery, before which we cannot but prostrate ourselves in adoration. … We shall never exhaust the depths of this mystery. …
But her contemplation of Christ’s face cannot stop at the image of the Crucified One. He is the Risen One! … It is the Risen Christ to whom the Church now looks. And she does so in the footsteps of Peter, who wept for his denial and started out again by confessing, with understandable trepidation, his love of Christ: “You know that I love you” (Jn 21:15-17). She does so in the company of Paul, who encountered the Lord on the road to Damascus and was overwhelmed: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). Two thousand years after these events, the Church relives them as if they had happened today. Gazing on the face of Christ, the Bride contemplates her treasure and her joy. “Dulcis Iesu memoria, dans vera cordis gaudia”: how sweet is the memory of Jesus, the source of the heart’s true joy! … “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20). ... We shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which He gives us: I am with you! It is not therefore a matter of inventing a “new program.” The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ Himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in Him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with Him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication. This program for all times is our program for the Third Millennium. … If in the planning that awaits us we commit ourselves more confidently to a pastoral activity that gives personal and communal prayer its proper place, we shall be observing an essential principle of the Christian view of life: the primacy of grace. There is a temptation which perennially besets every spiritual journey and pastoral work, that of thinking that the results depend on our ability to act and to plan. God of course asks us really to cooperate with His grace, and therefore invites us to invest all our resources of intelligence and energy in serving the cause of the Kingdom. But it is fatal to forget that “without Christ we can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). It is prayer which roots us in this truth. It constantly reminds us of the primacy of Christ and, in union with Him, the primacy of the interior life and of holiness. When this principle is not respected, is it any wonder that pastoral plans come to nothing and leave us with a disheartening sense of frustration?… This passion will not fail to stir in the Church a new sense of mission, which cannot be left to a group of “specialists” but must involve the responsibility of all the members of the People of God. Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep Him for themselves, they must proclaim Him. A new apostolic outreach is needed, which will be lived as the everyday commitment of Christian communities and groups. … This dialogue, however, cannot be based on religious indifferentism, and we Christians are in duty bound, while engaging in dialogue, to bear clear witness to the hope that is within us (cf. 1 Pt 3:15). We should not fear that it will be considered an offense to the identity of others what is rather the joyful proclamation of a gift meant for all, and to be offered to all with the greatest respect for the freedom of each one: the gift of the revelation of the God who is Love, the God who “so loved the world that He gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16). As the recent Declaration Dominus Iesus stressed, this cannot be the subject of a dialogue understood as negotiation, as if we considered it a matter of mere opinion. Rather, it is a grace which fills us with joy, a message which we have a duty to proclaim.