TRADITIONAL PAPAL MASS FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, TEACHERS

VATICAN CITY, DEC 15, 1999 (VIS) - Last evening in St. Peter's Basilica, the Holy Father celebrated Mass for the 20th consecutive year for Rome's university students and teachers, continuing a tradition he established at the start of his pontificate. Joining them were delegations from nine European universities twinned with nine Roman universities.

In his homily the Holy Father spoke of the imminence of the Jubilee Year and the opening of the Holy Doors in Rome and in dioceses around the world. Opening the door at St. Peter's, he said, "is a highly significant event: it represents the opening of a universal passage, as a meeting point towards which all men and peoples are invited to move, to enter in love, justice and peace in the Kingdom of God."

"The Jubilee theme chosen for the university world: 'The University for a New Humanism'," he said, "invites us to develop and increase the rich scientific patrimony of mankind according to a project which places man at the center. ... Serving mankind is the duty which, on the threshold of the third millennium, is entrusted in a special way to you of the university world." And he pointed to two important Holy Year meetings which will involve university teachers and students: World Youth Day and the World Meeting of University Professors.

Jubilees, stated John Paul II, are pilgrimages in faith towards God and they call for, above all else, conversion, "An essential prerequisite of faith, in fact, is conversion, ... an interior movement of oneself to God, which allows us to discover ourselves in a new and authentic way. The departure point is becoming aware of one's own poverty, of one's own need of salvation. What impedes or slows down conversion are pride, presumption, and trusting in oneself, which translate into arrogance, lies and iniquity."

Reiterating the universal aspect of the Jubilee, the Pope recalled that five continental synods had been held in recent years to prepare the Church to enter the year 2000. He said that the synods too were a kind of pilgrimage of peoples to God.
In closing, he urged the teachers and students to "love study, love knowledge which becomes broader and deeper with research, which becomes richer through engagement, showing the splendor of truth. Love life, respect it always, especially where it is fragile and defenseless."

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