JOHN PAUL II THANKS AUSTRIANS FOR CHRISTMAS TREE

VATICAN CITY, DEC 16, 2000 (VIS) - The Holy Father this morning welcomed a delegation from the Austrian province of Carinthia and from the Church of Gurk-Klagenfurt in Austria, and thanked them for the Jubilee Year Christmas tree which they donated for St. Peter's Square, fulfilling a promise made three years ago.

He had "a special greeting for Bishop Egon Kapellari and all the pilgrims, among whom is the regional governor of Carinthia with an official delegation amd the mayor of Gurk with a group from City Hall."

John Paul II said that, "when in past days I looked out of my study window to St. Peter's Square, the tree inspired me spiritually. I always loved trees in my own country. When one looks at them, they start, in a certain way, to speak. A poet once considered trees as preachers with a deep message: 'They don't preach doctrines or precepts, but announce the fundamental law of life'.

"In the flowering in the springtime, maturing in the summer, in the fruits of autumn and in dying in the winter, a tree tells the mystery of life."

"As do trees," the Pope went on, "men also need deeply anchored roots. Only those rooted in fertile soil have stability. ... He who believes he can live without foundations, lives an uncertain existence which resembles roots without earth."

He closed with a reference to Adam, in the Garden of Eden, as he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge and to Christ, who died on the tree of the Cross: "From the tree of paradise came death, from the tree of the Cross came life."

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