The challenge of Jubilee remains with us

By Bishop David Walker

For the past six years the life of the Church has been very much focused around Jubilee. For a number of years we prepared for it, and in the Jubilee year of 2000 we celebrated it with great vigour. One could wonder how we will be able to live without the theme of Jubilee constantly before us.

In a recently published Apostolic Letter our Holy Father takes up this issue and offers us some guidance. He points out that the Jubilee, while being a "celebration of the past", is also a "prophecy of the future". The Jubilee looks forward, not just back.

If our celebration of it has been authentic "it has strengthened our legs for the road that lies ahead". The challenge of Jubilee must remain with us.

We could say that the pontificate of the present Holy Father has focused around the Jubilee. He points out that from the beginning of his pontificate he saw its importance as an opportunity for the Church, 35 years after the Second Vatican Council, to reflect on how she had renewed herself and to take up with renewed enthusiasm her evangelising mission.

The reflection of the Jubilee year was meant to be the basis for renewed fervour and fresh enthusiasm for proclaiming the Gospel. With its completion, the task now is to work on guidelines
for action, to put into practice what our reflections have yielded.

This takes up the Pope’s call to the new evangelisation: "We must rekindle in ourselves the impetus of the beginnings and allow ourselves to be filled with the ardour of the apostolic preaching which followed Pentecost."

The Jubilee brought before us, in a unique way, the central mystery of our faith: the Incarnation. The Word was made flesh, God became like us that we might become like God, and the divine became human that the human might become divine.

The important issue here is not only the fact of what happened, but also the how of it. The method of God’s dealings with us is one of incarnation, becoming like us in all things but sin. The Church is the extension of the incarnation of the Word.

The Church is called to become incarnate in the world: each local church in the locality where it exists. This enculturation, this incarnation, is the foundation of our proclamation of the Gospel.

As we work together to fulfil our mission to the world with renewed vigour and fresh enthusiasm the Holy Father reminds us that we need to act together. He calls for a spirituality of communion, which is to be the guiding principle in the education and formation of all.

"Communion must be cultivated and extended day by day and at every level in the structures of each Church’s life." We must work together out of the common life we share with Jesus. The command to love each other must carry over into the way we carry out our mission.

In Broken Bay we used the Jubilee to begin to reflect on our local Church and to create guidelines for action in the future. Many of you patiently took part in groups to share your insights and the material collected has been collated and will be the basis of a plan of action that will be offered to you for further discussion.

This further discussion of our Pastoral Plan, and its implementation will be a particular focus for this year.

As we move forward I ask you to take up the challenges offered by our Holy Father. Enter with new enthusiasm and fresh vigour into the mission of preaching the Gospel.

Live the Gospel in a way that the people of society can understand and imitate. Adopt a spirituality of communion that draws you into living the Gospel and fulfilling your mission with others. 

The Holy Father urges us to respond to the command that Jesus gave to Peter as he sat in his boat on the lake of Galilee: "Put out into the deep" (Lk 5:4).

We must be ready to launch ourselves into the world to proclaim the Good News. We need to do so with courage, confidence and trust.

He puts before us the foundation of such courage, confidence and trust – the assurance of the Lord: "I am with you always" (Mt 28:20).

He offers us for imitation the example of St Paul: "Straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil 3:13-14).

© 2001 Diocese of Broken Bay

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