JOHN PAUL II PARTICIPATES IN A "CHILDREN'S PARTY"

VATICAN CITY, JAN 5, 2001 (VIS) - In the Paul VI Hall this afternoon, John Paul II participated in a "children's party" for the closure of the Jubilee. The event included music, songs and dancing. A number of children, representing the five continents, placed gifts around the nativity scene in the hall.

At the end of the party, the Pope said: "The Holy Year opened with children and it is right that it should end with them. This is a positive omen, a concrete hope for life."

The Pope recalled the title of the event, "Following the Comet," saying that it recalled "the Epiphany of the Lord, ... the Magi," who had "the hearts of children; fascinated as they were by the mystery, and ready to take up the invitation of the star, leaving everything to adore the King of the Jews, born in Bethlehem."

John Paul II highlighted that the children now present will be, tomorrow, "the first generation of Christian adults of the third millennium. How great is your responsibility. You will be the protagonists of the next Jubilee in the year 2025."

He concluded: "I, who have had the great satisfaction of introducing the Church into the third millennium, look at you with my heart full of hope. In your eyes, in your tender faces, I feel I can almost see the goal of the next Jubilee. I look far ahead and pray for you. Dear boys and girls, keep the lamp of faith shining high, the lamp that this evening I figuratively entrust to you and your peers all over the world. With it, illuminate the paths of life, set the world aflame with love."

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