12/26/99

Signposts in a Field of Time: listing great events

At the end of one calendar year and the beginning of another, commentators and pundits create lists of the most important events and people of the year coming to an end and occasionally hazard a guess about what will be of importance in the year to come. This year, these comments take in the past century or even the millennium. Whether or not you make New Year’s resolutions, it can be fun and even spiritually useful to take stock of things in your own life and in the life of the Church and the world.

The Religion Newswriters Association of America, listing the ten top religion stories of the last millennium, began with the Protestant Reformation (dated from the publication of Luther’s theses in 1517) and continued with the first printed Bible (1455); the great schism of 1054, which divided the Church between East and West; the Nazi holocaust of the Jews in Europe in the middle of this century; the Crusades; the spread of Islam into India and Africa and the Turkish conquest of Constantinople (1453); the Second Vatican Council; the American experiment in separation of Church and State; the intellectually challenging atheism of Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud; the beginnings of modern Pentecostalism with the Azuza Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906. It is unfortunate that many U.S. Catholics would know little about the last event on the list, because we are often unaware of the development of the holiness movement in American Protestantism. Our sense of history would probably recognize, however, the other events listed by the journalists.

Commenting on this century alone, Catholic author Russell Shaw chose as the top ten stories the modernist crisis in this past century’s first decade, which made religion an entirely human construct and tried to detach the Church from divine revelation; the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima; the holocaust of the Jewish people during World War II; the rise and fall of Communism; the Second Vatican Council; Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae and the organized opposition to it by some theologians; the changes in the celebration of the liturgy and the rise of lay movements after the Council; and Pope John Paul II’s analysis of the world cultural scene at the end of the century as a sphere of contention between life and death. In 1995, the Pope wrote, “We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the culture of death and the culture of life. We find ourselves not only faced with but necessarily in the midst of this conflict: we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life.”

The Knights of Columbus monthly magazine recently also featured a list of Catholic events which shaped the Church and the world in this century: the Second Vatican Council; the election and papacy of John Paul II; the election and papacy of John XXIII; the codification of canon law; Pope Pius X’s promotion of daily Communion and his lowering of the age at which a child could first receive the Eucharist; the rise and fall (and rise) of religious vocations; the publication of Humanae Vitae; the charismatic renewal; the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church; the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima.

If these events had not happened, the world and the church would be very different today. Each of us can name particular events in his or her own life which have changed us profoundly. The New Year is a moment to list them and to thank God for the movements of grace and the manifestations of his providence in our lives and in the world. It is a moment to thank as well those we live and work with who have been a grace, a gift to us.

Many categories of people will have special “days” during this jubilee year, when the Church thanks them for their cooperation with God’s grace and their service to others. In February, there is the jubilee for health care workers and for artists. In May the jubilee for scientists and for the armed services; in June, for journalists and in September, the jubilee for the building trades and construction workers as well as for teachers. In November the church will celebrate jubilee days for government employees and agricultural workers and the police; and in December of 2000, there is a jubilee day for entertainers.

In biblical perspective, time always has a rhythm. God, in the book of Genesis, created for six days and rested on the seventh, the sabbath. That original seventh day was the first jubilee, celebrated by God himself; and it was picked up in the life of God’s people. You work for six days, and then rest and pray for a day; you work for six years, and then plan a sabbatical; you work for a lifetime and then enjoy a sabbatical called eternity.

Since the year 2000 is to be a whole year of Sundays, of sabbaths, our lives and our use of time should change during the jubilee. Planning to gain the jubilee indulgence will itself impose a certain “rest” or change of pace: entering into the sacramental confession of our sins, receiving Holy Communion, making a pilgrimage, praying for the Pope’s intentions, visiting a jubilee Church, doing works of charity-visiting the sick or those in prison, the elderly and those who are alone, caring for abandoned children, spending time with young people in trouble or others who are in need. All of this will alter our use of time and our way of being with Christ in this year 2000.

Will the celebration of the year 2000 as a jubilee also change the history of the whole human race? How will it shape the millennium it ushers in? We cannot know. But the sense that the next millennium will see a growth in globalization of the economy, of culture, of communication, of many social structures is strong as we end this century of division and war. People of faith look on globalization as both a danger and an opportunity. Globalization without human solidarity will crush many of our brothers and sisters around the world; globalization which is permeated with love will lead to a new unity of the human race, a unity which welcomes differences as gifts to be shared rather than as obstacles which divide. This is the Church’s vision of the future, as the Pope prays for a “springtime” for the Gospel of love. This January l, the Church marks for the 33rd time a world day of peace. The theme this year picks up the angels’ message at Christmas: “Peace on earth to those whom God loves!” On January 2, the Church celebrates again the feast of the Epiphany, designated annually as a day for welcoming migrants and strangers in our towns and churches and families. Gratitude, peace, welcome--if these definitively mark the year 2000, the jubilee celebration will alter human history. To each of you, a most blessed New Year, a year of jubilee.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

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