The spiritual preparation, through the City Mission proclaimed by the Pope for the Diocese of Rome, and the sensitisation of parishes and families to receive pilgrims, are the two guiding priorities of the activity of the Rome Committee in view of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.

The City Mission is to be considered the focal point, which sees, over 13,000 "missionaries" of the diocese involved during Lent, many of them lay people but there is also a significant presence of religious, who are visiting all the families of Rome repeating the same gesture carried out by the Holy Father, stopping in homes to announce the word of Jesus in a style of listening, dialogue and simplicity.

In Lent 1999 the same initiative will be repeated in schools, universities, work places, hospitals, youth centres.

Centres to listen to the Gospel will be set up in houses to make permanent the work for a new evangelisation whose need and urgency has been stressed by the Pope. Specific initiatives are planned for young people to become closer, also those "faraway". In essence, the commitment of the diocesan community intends to consolidate, as affirmed by John Paul II, "that ecclesial fabric, that spiritual network which will be very important to offer to pilgrims of the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 a reception deserving of the city of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul".

On the more organisational level, the Rome Committee has already promoted a capillary sensitisation of all the 328 parishes of the Diocese and, through these, of the families of Rome, to guarantee reception in the most adequate manner to the millions of people who will converge from all parts of the world to celebrate the two thousand years of the birth of Christ. The first responses are very positive, a sign of a generous will to share the feast of the Jubilee with brothers of every nationality, so that the Holy Year may be a true "school of faith".

The traditional meeting of Rome’s youth with the Pope, which comes a few days before Easter, will be lived in the prospective of the Great Jubilee. On Palm Sunday, at the end of the solemn Eucharist presided by John Paul II, the youth of the Church of Rome will receive the Cross of the World Youth Day from the youth of the Church of Paris. In the following months, the Cross will be taken on a pilgrimage to the Italian dioceses.