Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP, Director
Pope John Paul II has called for the year 2000 to be a jubilee year. What can this mean for the Church and for the world? And what exactly is a jubilee year?
The jubilee is described in the Book of Leviticus. At the heart of the jubilee was a claim that God makes upon the land and people that are his own:
"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine, and you are but aliens who have become my tenants. Therefore, in every part of the country that you occupy, you must permit the land to be redeemed" (Lev 25:23-24).
The land of Israel belonged to God. He was the landlord, the people of Israel his tenants. Therefore, human ownership of the land was only conditional, not ab-solute. In the jubilee year, God made his own claim upon his people, and insisted that those who had been deprived of their land (even if they had sold it) should once again regain their inheritance.
The jubilee came from the Sabbath observance:
"Seven weeks of years shall you count—seven times seven years—so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years. Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month let the trumpet resound; on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echo throughout your land. This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, every one to his own family estate" (Lev 25:8-10).
In the jubilee year, property which had been alienated due to financial hardship would be returned, debts would be canceled, those who were in servitude would be freed. Therefore the jubilee was to achieve "liberty in the land for all its inhabitants."
The jubilee of the year 2000 is to be a year in which all the peoples of the world are to know the freedom of the children of God. For the whole earth belongs to God—not just Israel—and all are his people. How is this realization to be achieved? We are reminded of the inauguration of Our Lord's ministry according to the Gospel of Luke:
"'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.' Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:18-21).
The year "acceptable to the Lord" is the year of jubilee: Our Lord came to proclaim a new jubilee, in which the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed are to be redeemed. Since Our Lord commissioned the Church to continue his work in the world, the Church must continue to proclaim the new jubilee. In this sense, the jubilee is renewed every time someone is freed by Christ through the ministry of his Church. But if proclaiming the jubilee is the constant work of the Church, why has the Holy Father designated the year 2000 in a special way? For no other reason than to renew the whole Church in the light of our common task of proclaiming the Lord's jubilee.
Pope John Paul sees many reasons to hope that the Church can be renewed in this task. One of the greatest of these signs has been the renewal of the laity:
"With the Second Vatican Council, 'the great gift of the Spirit to the Church at the end of the second millennium,' we have experienced the grace of a renewed Pentecost. Many signs of hope have sprung from it for the Church's mission…. I am thinking, among other things, of the rediscovery and appreciation of the charisms which have fostered a more vital communion between the different vocations given to the People of God, of renewed zeal for evangelization, of the advance-ment of lay people and their participation and co-responsibility in the life of the Christian community, of their apostolate and their service in society" (John Paul II, Address to Pontifical Council for the Laity, March 1, 1999, #3).
While much has been accomplished, much remains to be done. Therefore, on the eve of the new millennium, the Holy Father invites the laity to an examination of conscience, in order that you may truly proclaim the Lord's jubilee:
"The Jubilee therefore spurs every lay Christian to ask himself some fundamental questions: What have I done with my Baptism? How am I responding to my vocation? What have I done with my Confirmation? Have I made the gifts and charisms of the Spirit bear fruit? Is Christ the "Thou" always present in my life? Am I fully and deeply a member of the Church's mystery of missionary communion, as willed by her Founder and as realized in her living Tradition? In my decisions, am I faithful to the truth taught by the Church's Magi-sterium? Is my marital, family and professional life imbued with Christ's teaching? Is my social and political involvement based on Gospel principles and the social doctrine of the Church? What contribution do I make to creating ways of life more worthy of man and woman, and to inculturating the Gospel amid the great changes taking place (ibid., 2)?
If we truly live the jubilee, then what can be accomplished? If we live our Baptism—if we are deeply aware that we are God's sons and daughters—then we can have an enormous impact upon our world. We can "respond to our vocation," which is the renewal of the world in the image of Christ. For this work we have been given charisms, supernatural gifts, so that others may encounter the redeeming work of Christ through us. Therefore our communion is a "missionary communion": Christ is proclaimed through our encourag-ing, teaching, administration, prayer—in short, in all of the ways that we have been gifted. We can use the resources of our tradition in all of our secular involvements, and literally render every situation in which we find ourselves "more worthy of man and woman." This is what it means to "inculturate the Gospel": we cause the Gospel to be at home in our own culture.
This is the year of the Father, the year of the One whose judgement is always mercy. Pope John Paul has called us to an examina-tion of our conscience. Let us make that examination in the presence of the Father of Mercies and commit ourselves to proclaiming the jubilee. Let us help our society to remember what life in the presence of the Father can mean.