POPE'S CALL TO READ AND MEDITATE UPON THE GOSPEL

VATICAN CITY, JUN 6, 1999 (VIS) - This morning the Pope went by helicopter to Pelplin, 50 kilometers south of Gdansk, and from there he travelled by popemobile to 'Biskupia Gora' (Bishop's Mountain), where he celebrated Mass.

Commenting in his homily on the words of the Gospel, "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it," John Paul II told the 350,000 faithful: "Cross into the new millennium with the Book of the Gospels! Let there be one in every Polish home! Read and meditate upon it! Let Christ speak!"

The Holy Father made reference to "the temptation to interpret Sacred Scripture apart from the Church's long tradition of faith, using modes of interpretation proper to contemporary literature or journalism. That creates the danger of over-simplification, of falsification of revealed truth, and even the adaptation of that truth to the demands of an individualist philosophy of life or an ideology, accepted a priori."

After making clear his delight at the importance that pastors give to the Liturgy of the Word and to the catechesis, he highlighted the necessity that "those who assume responsibility for an authoritative explanation of revealed truth must trust not in their own, often fallible, intuition but in sound knowledge and in unyielding faith."

"To those who must cross the threshold of the third millennium, we want to say: Build your house upon rock! Build upon rock the house of your personal and social life! And the rock is Christ - Christ living in his Church."

At the conclusion of Mass and before praying the Angelus, the Pope spoke of the example of the Virgin who faithfully kept the word of God: "She, the Mother of the Son of God, dedicated her own life entirely to faithfully keeping of the word of God. She listened to God without ceasing, she meditated upon the words and events, receiving this Revelation with her whole being in the 'obedience of faith'."

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