PUBLICATION OF POPE'S MESSAGE FOR LENT 2000

VATICAN CITY, JAN 27, 2000 (VIS) - Made public today was John Paul II's message for Lent 2000, the theme of which is "I am with you always, to the close of the age." Selections from the text, which bears the date of September 21, 1999 and is published in Italian, English, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese, are given below:

"This year, the celebration of Lent, a time of conversion and reconciliation, takes on a particular character, occurring as it does during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. The time of Lent is in fact the culminating point of the journey of conversion and reconciliation which the Jubilee, the year of the Lord's favor, offers to all the faithful, so that they can renew their fidelity to Christ and proclaim his mystery of salvation with renewed ardor in the new millennium."

"We were dead through sin, this is how St. Paul describes the situation of man without Christ. ... This is a slavery which man experiences every day, as he perceives its deep roots in his own heart. Sometimes it shows itself in dramatic and unusual ways, as happened in the course of the great tragedies of the twentieth century, which deeply marked the lives of countless communities and individuals, the victims of cruel violence. Forced deportations, the systematic elimination of peoples, contempt for the fundamental rights of the person: these are the tragedies which even today humiliate humanity. In daily life too we see all sorts of forms of fraud, hatred, the destruction of others, and lies of which man is both the victim and source. Humanity is marked by sin. Its tragic condition reminds us of the cry of alarm uttered by the Apostle to the nations: 'None is righteous, no, not one'.

"In the face of the darkness of sin and man's incapacity to free himself on his own, there appears in all its splendor the saving work of Christ. ... He shared in human life 'unto death, even death on a cross,' to ransom mankind from the slavery of evil and restore humanity to its original dignity as children of God. ... In the Risen Lord, death's power is broken and mankind is enabled, through faith, to enter into communion with God."

"The Jubilee is the time of grace in which we are invited to open ourselves in a particular way to the mercy of the Father, who in the Son has stooped down to man, and to reconciliation, the great gift of Christ. ... God offers his mercy to whoever is willing to accept it, even to the distant and doubtful. The people of our time, tired of mediocrity and false hopes, are thus given an opportunity to set out on the path that leads to fullness of life. ... During the Holy Year the Church offers various opportunities for personal and community reconciliation. Each diocese has designated special places where the faithful can go in order to experience a particular presence of God. ... Particular significance attaches to pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to Rome, which are special places of encounter with God, because of their unique role in the history of salvation. ... I too hope, precisely during Lent of the year 2000, to be a pilgrim in the Holy Land, to the places where our faith began, in order to celebrate the two-thousandth Jubilee of the Incarnation."

"The path of conversion leads to reconciliation with God and to fullness of new life in Christ. A life of faith, hope and love. ... The grace of the Jubilee above all impels us to renew our personal faith. ... For Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, Abraham is the exemplar of the believer: trusting in the promise, he follows the voice of God calling him to set out on unknown paths. ... Through the grace of the Jubilee, the Lord likewise invites us to renew our hope. ... Through the virtue of hope, Christians bear witness to the fact that, beyond all evil and beyond every limit, history bears within itself a seed of good which the Lord will cause to germinate in its fullness. ... Through the Jubilee, finally, the Lord asks us to rekindle our charity. ... The Christian community knows that faith without works is dead. Thus, through charity, Christians make visible God's love for man revealed in Christ, and make manifest Christ's presence in the world 'to the close of the age.' ... During Lent, everyone ' rich and poor ' is invited to make Christ's love present through generous works of charity. During this Jubilee Year our charity is called in a particular way to manifest Christ's love to our brothers and sisters who lack the necessities of life, who suffer hunger, violence or injustice. ... How can we ask for the grace of the Jubilee if we are insensitive to the needs of the poor, if we do not work to ensure that all have what is necessary to lead a decent life?"

"'I am with you always, to the close of the age.' These words of Jesus assure us that, in proclaiming and living the Gospel of charity, we are not alone."

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