THE CATACOMBS: CORNERSTONE OF PIETY AND UNITY

VATICAN CITY, FEB 13, 2002 (VIS) - John Paul II wrote a message to Archbishop Francesco Marchisano, president of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archeology, for the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the first project undertaken by that organization. The commission was instituted by Pope Pius IX in order to extend the collection and study of Christian antiquities, with particular attention to the catacombs. The message is dated February 12.

"The catacombs," writes the Holy Father, "have represented, for believers in all ages, a cornerstone of piety and unity. There, eloquent testimony of the Church's sanctity, - serving to recall the communion that unites the living to the dead, ... time to eternity - is contained and venerated. In these holy places, the glorious coming of Christ is awaited by those marked with the seal of Baptism; those who, not infrequently, rendered the Gospel the ultimate witness of the effusion of their blood."

He continues: "Furthermore, I wish to recall that the commission over which you so worthily preside does not solely occupy itself with conserving the 'traces of the people of God.' It also seeks to gather and spread the religious and cultural message that such traces evoke. The contribution of those who work with you ... enables the Church to have an ever-deeper knowledge of the heritage left by the first Christian generations. The message that this heritage constantly and silently proclaims also helps Christians to remain faithful to the 'depositum fidei,' received as a precious treasure to be conserved with care."

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LENT BEGINS. A TIME FOR CONVERSION AND PENITENCE

VATICAN CITY, FEB 13, 2002 (VIS) - In the general audience of today, Ash Wednesday, the Pope affirmed: "Together with the entire Church, we begin a 40-day journey in preparation for Easter, with the austere symbol of the imposition of the ashes and accompanied by Christ's exhortation: 'repent, and believe in the Gospel'."

He went on: "All human beings are thus confronted with their condition as sinners and with their need for penitence and conversion. The Christian faith reminds us that this pressing call to reject evil and do good is a gift of God, from Whom comes all that is good in the life of man. Everything has its origin in the gratuitous initiative of God, Who created us for joy and orients all things towards true goodness."

The Holy Father indicated that the message for Lent this year focuses on "the gratuitousness of God's initiative in our lives. ... The path of conversion down which we faithfully start today, is fully part of this original context of love and gratuitousness. Are not the giving of alms and the charitable gestures which we are especially called to make in this time of penitence, a response to the gratuitousness of divine grace?"

"Modern society has a profound need to rediscover the value of gratuitousness, especially because a logic exclusively motivated by the search for profit and gain at any cost often seems to triumph in our world. In the face of the widespread feeling that all choices and actions are dominated by the logic of market forces and the law of greatest-possible income, the Christian faith re-proposes the ideal of gratuitousness, based on people's conscious freedom and animated by authentic love."

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