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FROM PARIS TO THE HOLY DOOR OF THE YEAR 2000

FROM PARIS TO THE HOLY DOOR OF THE YEAR 2000

Stefano Argentino Storino

The Church in France is preparing to live an "intense" moment in its life with the celebration of the now imminent World Youth Days. Hundreds of thousands of young people - there is talk of at least 400,000 - coming from 140 different nations in the world, are expected from 14 to 24 August next in the transalpine dioceses and in Paris. Here they will be joined by John Paul II, who will arrive in the capital on Thursday the 21st. For him immediately a welcome ceremony at the Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower; then an evening vigil at Notre-Dame. On the following Saturday the Holy Father will preside at a new solemn moment of evening prayer which will precede the great liturgy of 24 August - appointments which will both take place in the suggestive setting of the Longchamp Race Course.

So after Manila 1995, Paris 1997. And this year's great international youth gathering assumes a special significance: an important stage in the preparation for the Jubilee of the Year 2000. In fact the young people who will take part in it will have an opportunity to experience days of communion, it will be a passage of their faith from a strictly private affair to a supernatural and universalistic sharing. A similar passage which - naturally on a much larger scale - all the tens of millions of pilgrims expected in Rome at the end of the millennium will be called to live.

«Some will think that the Days will be merely an interlude in the normal life of the youngsters who will flock here», the Archbishop of Paris, Card. Jean-Marie Lustiger, asserts. «I think and hope instead that these days will give them a new impulse for a greater responsibility towards the future. These young people - Card. Lustiger continues - have been swamped from infancy with pictures of violence. The image of the world transmitted to them by the media consists only of violence and illusion. Violence has become so commonplace that many young people can no longer distinguish reality from dreams. The World Days will be an occasion for celebrating, a celebration that is opposed to violent models of life, in which they can discover the other in his or her inner dignity».

Participants will have precise objectives: to meet, to enlighten one another reciprocally through exchanges of experiences, to pray with the Pope. And to make of those days a great celebration which may symbolize the image of believing together. «A feast of Christ, a spiritual event», points out Mons. Michel Dubost, one of those responsible for the organization. But not only this. In fact it will be a real pilgrimage and certainly not a simple "kermis" of young Catholics, nor a kind of tourist-religious event, though there will be areas devoted to culture and recreation.

The days will be characterized by a triple dimension. The first, in fact, a "spiritual" dimension, nourished by daily catechesis by bishops from every part of the world in no less than 19 languages and in more than a hundred different places in Paris. Some will be directed especially to the handicapped, the sick and prisoners. Then there will be an "ecclesial" dimension, a time for the proclamation of Christ and for prayer. An important time for many young people who often experience the difficulty and hardship of loneliness in their daily lives. So a privileged time for living authentic communion.

Finally, a "missionary" dimension. Which means returning from Paris to their own towns and homes with more will and desire to pass on to others the joy of the Gospel lived in communion, beyond the singularities of each. The central theme of this year's Day is taken from St John's Gospel (1,38-39): «Teacher, where are you staying? Come and see». The logo is already prepared: a cross at the top of an outline of the Eiffel Tower.

The pilgrimage will be divided into two distinct periods. From 14 to 18 August the young participants coming from many different countries - with regard to this it is expected there will be at least 40 thousand Italians - will gather in the Transalpine dioceses, where they will be given accommodation in families and invited to meetings, festivities and prayers. From 18 to 24 the setting will move totally to Paris, where it will culminate in the great liturgical celebration at Longchamp, together with John Paul II. The mass will have a choir of 10 thousand young people, directed by the Korean Myung-Whun Chung, former art director of the Paris Opera House and today director of the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome.

So an event that has needed months of preparation. Also for this reason some 500 thousand French teenagers have been extremely busy for a long time in the transalpine parishes and dioceses.

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