The Social Message of the Jubilee

Archbishop Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân The Social Message of the Jubilee "Contemplating the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Church prepares to cross the threshold of the third millennium ."These are die opening words ofthe Bull ofIndiction ofdie Great Jubilee of the year 2000 entitled lncarnationis Mysterium. We could say that these words synthesize the Church's attitude as she prepares to interpret and live this long-awaited date at die end ofthe millennium. "Contemplating die mystery ofthe Incarnation": this thought is repeated at other times in the document when it observes that "in celebrating the Incarnation, we fix our gaze upon Jesus," and again when it points out that as we "all hasten to the feast now being organized ," all the Ecclesial Communities throughout the world, "let us bring with us everything that already unites us and, byfixing our gaze on Christ alone, let us grow in the unity which is the fruit of the Spirit" (4). In taking up the theme of the social message of the Jubilee, I would like to start from here: that is, I would like to dwell on these well-chosen words for a moment because I diink they contain the right viewpoint that sheds light on die nature ofthe event. logos 3:1 winter 2000 38 LOGOS Contemporary culture perceives the approach of the new millennium in terms of issues, uncertainties, and questions regarding the future. In most cases, the interviews, broadcasts, and discussions stir up expectations, anxieties, and hopes for the future. This is surely a positive sign because the human heart thrives on making plans and on hope. Nonetiieless, this perspective runs the risk of turning out to be only partial. It is never useless to recall that prior to being the first year ofthe new millennium, the year 2000 is the last year of the two thousand years since Christ's Incarnation. There was a moment in history that, so to speak, "gave origin to history,"because from that moment on, people began to count the years. Therefore, the Jubilee is first of all the living remembrance ofdiat event. Allow me to re-read what the poet T. S. Eliot wrote in this regard with unsurpassable, evocative skill: Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time and of time, A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history: transecting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time but not like a moment of time, A moment in time but time was made through that moment: for without the meaning there is no time, and that moment of time gave the meaning. (Choruses from "The Rock,"VII) Therefore, the Holy Father's emphasis at the beginning of the Bull of Indiction represents a decisive cultural judgment: "Contemplating the mystery ofthe Incarnation ofthe Son ofGod, the Church prepares to cross die threshold ofthe third millennium." Christ is the hinge between the past and the future because Christ is the present, "the center of the cosmos and of history." It is only by looking at Christ that the Church can look to the future, to people's "joys and hopes,"because in looking at Christ, she looks at and contemplates the Redeemer ofpeople's "joys and hopes." THE social message OF the jubilee39 For this reason, "fixing our gaze upon Christ" does not mean staying in the past but recognizing the mystery of the present redemption as a factor that fills time: the past, the present, and the future. Christ's Incarnation has put meaning into time and space. The very idea oftime and history is a Judeo-Christian idea. In a dialectical relationship witii the classical tradition that conceived oftime as an eternal and circular return, Christianity introduced die idea of time as the development and fulfillment of God's covenant with man. Gazing upon Christ is not the remembrance of what no longer is nor the expectation of what is still not. It is the space of His saving presence offered to people's freedom. The Bull ofIndiction goes on to say that the period ofthe Jubilee is a time ofremembrance and education, of conversion and...