Giuseppe Scotti

"We think that the Holy Year can be in God’s design an hour of grace for souls, for the Church, for the world". The words by Paul VI to the pilgrims which came to Rome in September 1973 and who took part in the general audiences had a clear aim: preparing the heart of the faithful to live that extraordinary, and for certain aspects surprising, moment of the Church which is the Jubilee. And, surprisingly, the same opinion comes back in the apostolic letter Tertio Millennio adveniente. That is the document with which Pope John Paul II invited, from 1994, the whole Church to prepare for that event which, he writes: "is always a time of particular grace, a day blessed by the Lord".

A time of grace, a day blessed by the Lord, a time of charity and of renewed religious fervour, a moment to reawaken consciences: these are some of the many and rich expressions with which Paul VI helped the Church, the people which belong to God, to enter a year which many, at that particular historical moment, simply did not want it to take place, to be celebrated. And yet, Paul VI, against the feelings of the time and the trends, wanted the Holy Year to be celebrated.

A year entirely blessed, the Jubilee year. A year to face and to live - as Pope John Paul II was to write over twenty years after that catechesis - with a "joyous" character.

The thread of these thoughts comes back, today, thanks to a volume by the Vatican Publishing Library. The texts with which Paul VI explained the meaning of the Holy Year are re-proposed with care. It offers the same words with which the Pope helped the faithful to enter that "unique large river" capable of seeing the whole of Christian history and of enjoying the revelation of the love of God made man. Author of such a work, the fruit of impassioned love for the defunct Pontiff, is a priest from Milan: Father Giorgio Basadonna. An audio cassette is provided with the book which was realised thanks to the contribution of Vatican Radio’s historical archive. The title - With Paul VI towards the Jubilee of the Year 2000 - pushes Cardinal Roger Etchegaray to write in the preface that there is a strong "convergence of the themes of the Jubilee with those proposed by Pope John Paul II for the upcoming Holy Year".

Therefore, a volume which re-proposes the thought of Paul VI and an audio cassette which offers the listener emotions thought to be impossible.

With Paul VI towards the Jubilee of the Year 2000 is a true path where, along with the roots of faith and the religion to which we are called, the memory of Pope Montini becomes simpler and greater. A Pope filled with joy, who invites and introduces men, his brothers, to enjoy the immense good of faith and of the love of God. A Pope who surprises the listener when in the catechesis, with a simple and immediate language, he introduces the faithful to the understanding of "Our Father" helping him to pause before the mystery of an immense and boundless love.

Paul VI, the Pontiff who translates for the faithful, even the simplest and most ignorant of theological studies, the mystery of the Holiest Trinity of God just as Augustin perceived it and wrote about it in the De Trinitate. A Pope which makes the holy mystery of God accessible and fascinating. A story which is all splendid revelation of love and of life.

Probably the listener or the reader of the volume will find himself in strong agreement with Cardinal Etchegaray who perceives and writes: "Two Popes reaching the end of their lives who obstinately incite men to look to the dawn announced by the birth of the Saviour. Two intrepid sentinels at the outposts of history". And maybe it’s right this way. Maybe there is no other way in the life of faith of a Pope.

What the Gospel of Luke presents as the special vocation of elderly Simeon and the one, just as significant, of the prophetess Anna, become a single thing in Paul VI and in John Paul II.

Elderly, Simeon and Anna, elderly Paul VI and John Paul II. Both see, in the greatness of their faith, The promised Messiah and are joyful because the Lord is faithful in his history of love with man. But that is not sufficient: while they catch sight in this history of ours of all the love of God at work, they announce it to the full with strength and jubilation to everyone they meet.

It isn’t really a chance if, in the Holy Year of 1975, Paul VI publishes that letter - Gaudete in Dominio - whose mark is in that expression of Pascal which is like a seal to the entire letter, but also to the whole life of the elderly Pontiff: "Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy!" And Pope John Paul II echoes Pope Paul VI in Tertio Millennio Adveniente: "The term Jubilee speaks of joy, jubilation which is manifested externally".

All this tells a simple and linear truth: "a Jubilee is held to… be jubilant", writes Cardinal Etchegaray. And he continues in the preface: "If there was a Pope who wanted to underline the joyous aspect of a Holy Year, it was Paul VI". A feast that has a root, a heart, a gushing spring. Paul VI said: "The more exalted and profound word: the word which referred to its supreme and authentic significance includes everything and explains everything: the word "Love". God is love. This is the ineffable revelation, which the Jubilee with its pedagogy, its indulgence, its forgiveness and finally with its peace full of tears and joy, has wanted to fill the spirit today, and always life tomorrow: God is love!" We must listen with what strength, what warmth, what transparency of voice and intimacy with the Lord, Paul VI makes such a declaration. All this enters the heart and leaves an indelible trace in the frenzy of daily life, in the confusion of the things to do, in the banality of preoccupations which take one’s look away from the saintly mystery of God.

It is right to give thanks for this book, which is significant large and beautiful. The first thank you goes to Father Giorgio Basadonna who chose the texts of the catechesis of the years 1973-1975 and classified them and divided them in seven chapters to which he added a brief premise. Following him, comes a thank you to the engineers of Vatican Radio who made it possible to again listen to the Pope who now has, the face of the teacher because before he was a credible witness of the Invisible to which everything has been donated. However, at this point, one also needs to say and write "thank you" to Monsignor Pasquale Macchi who looks after the memory of Pope Montini with filial love and increasingly looks like the Scribe of the Gospel who draws from his treasure ancient and new things. The long familiarity with the life of Paul VI - first in Milan, and then in Rome - pushed him to be a promoter of this initiative which, fully, inserts itself in the path of the Church towards the Jubilee of the Year 2000. Paul VI asked himself if the tradition of the Holy Year deserved "to be maintained in our time, so different from past times and so conditioned on the one side by the religious style impressed on ecclesial life by the recent Council, and on the other by the practical disinterest from a large part of the modern world towards ritual expressions of another century". This volume truly helps everyone "to prepare for the Great Jubilee of the beginning of the third millennium renewing the hope of the definitive advent of the Kingdom of God".