Part
V "JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME ... FOR EVER" (Heb 13:8)
56- The Church has endured for 2000 years. Like the mustard seed in the Gospel, she has grown and become a great tree, able to cover the whole of humanity with her branches (cf. Mt 13:31-32). The Second Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, thus addresses the question of membership in the Church and the call of all people to belong to the People of God: "All are called to be part of this Catholic unity of the new People of God ... And there belong to it or are related to it in various ways, the Catholic faithful as well as all who believe in Christ, and indeed the whole of mankind, which by the grace of God is called to salvation".36 Pope Paul VI, in the Encyclical Ecclesiam Suam illustrates how all mankind is involved in the plan of God, and emphasizes the various circles of the dialogue of salvation.37 Continuing this approach, we can also appreciate more clearly the Gospel parable of the leaven (cf. Mt 13:33); Christ, like a divine leaven, always and ever more fully penetrates the life of humanity, spreading the work of salvation accomplished in the Paschal Mystery. What is more, he embraces within his redemptive power the whole past history of the human race, beginning with the first Adam.38 The future also belongs to him: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb 13:8). For her part the Church "seeks but a solitary goal: to carry forward the work of Christ himself under the lead of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. And Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not to be served."39 57Therefore, ever since the apostolic age, the Church's mission has continued without interruption within the whole human family. The first evangelization took place above all in the region of the Mediterranean. In the course of the first millennium, missions setting out from Rome and Constantinople brought Christianity to the whole continent of Europe. At the same time they made their way to heart of Asia, as far as India and China. The end of the fifteenth century marked both the discovery of America and the beginning of the evangelization of that great continent, North and South. Simultaneously, while the sub-Saharan coasts of Africa welcomed the light of Christ, Saint Francis Xavier, Patron of the Missions, reached Japan. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, a layman, Andrew Kim, brought Christianity to Korea. In the same period the proclamation of the Gospel reached Indochina, as well as Australia and the Islands of the Pacific.
The nineteenth century witnessed vast missionary activity among the peoples of Africa. All these efforts bore fruit which has lasted up to the present day. The Second Vatican Council gives an account of this in the Decree Ad Gentes on Missionary Activity. After the Council the question of missionary work was dealt with in the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, in the light of the problems of the missions in these final years of our century. In the future too, the Church must continue to be a missionary: indeed missionary outreach is part of her very nature. With the fall of the great anti- Christian systems in Europe, first of Nazism, and then of Communism, there is urgent need to bring once more the liberating message of the Gospel to the men and women of Europe.40 Furthermore, as the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio affirms, the modern world reflects the situation of the Areopagus of Athens, where Saint Paul spoke.41 Today there are many "areopagi," and very different ones: these are the vast sectors of contemporary civilization and culture, of politics and economics. The more the West is becoming estranged from its Christian roots, the more it is becoming missionary territory, taking the form of many different "areopagi."
58 The future of the world and the Church belongs to the younger generation, to those who, born in this century, will reach maturity in the next, the first century of the new millennium. Christ expects great things from young people, as he did from the young man who asked him: "What good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" (Mt 19:16). I have referred to the remarkable answer which Jesus gave to him, in the recent Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, as I did earlier, in 1985, in my Apostolic Letter to the Youth of the World. Young people, in every situation, in every region of the world, do not cease to put questions to Christ: they meet him and they keep searching for him in order to question him further. If they succeed in following the road which he points out to them, they will have the joy of making their own contribution to his presence in the next century and in the centuries to come, until the end of time: "Jesus is the same yesterday, today and for ever."
59 In conclusion, it is helpful to recall the words of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes: "The Church believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all, can through his Spirit offer man the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under heaven been given to man by which it is fitting for him to be saved. She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point, and the goal of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are so many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday and today and for ever. Hence in the light of Christ, the image of the unseen God, the firstborn of every creature, the Council wishes to speak to all men in order to illuminate the mystery of man and to cooperate in finding the solution to the outstanding problems of our time."42 While I invite the faithful to raise to the Lord fervent prayers to obtain the light and assistance necessary for the preparation and celebration of the forthcoming Jubilee, I exhort my Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and the ecclesial communities entrusted to them to open their hearts to the promptings of the Spirit. He will not fail to arouse enthusiasm and lead people to celebrate the Jubilee with renewed faith and generous participation.
I entrust this responsibility of the whole Church to the maternal intercession of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer. She, the Mother of Fairest Love, will be for Christians on the way to the Great Jubilee of the Third Millennium the Star which safely guides their steps to the Lord. May the unassuming Young Woman of Nazareth, who two thousand years ago offered to the world the Incarnate Word, lead the men and women of the new millennium towards the One who is "the true light that enlightens every man" (Jn 1:9).
With those sentiments I impart to all my blessing.
From the Vatican, on 10 November in the year 1994, the seventeenth of my Pontificate.
Joannes Paulus pp. II
ENDNOTES
1
2 Cf. ST. BERNARD, "In Laudibus Virginis Matris," Homilia IV, 8, Opera Omnia, Edit. Cist. (1966), 53.
3 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, "Gaudium et Spes", 22.4
4 Ibid.
5 Cf. Ant. Lud. 20:200, and the well-known and much discussed passage in 18:63-64.
6 Annales 15:44,3.
7 Vita Claudii, 25:4.
8 Epist. 10:96
9 Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 15
10 Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis, (4 March 1979), 1: AAS71 (1979), 258.
11 Cf. Encyclical Letter Dominum et Vifificantem (18 May 1986), 49ff; AAS78 (1986), 868ff.
12 Cf. Apostolic Letter Euntes in Mundum, (25 January 1988): AAS 80 (1988), 935-56.
13 Cf. Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991), 12: AAS83 (1991), 807-809.
14 Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the Church In the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 46-52.
15 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on The Church, Lumen Gentium, 1.
16 Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (2 December 1984): AAS 77 (1985), 185-275.
17 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on The Church, Lumen Gentium, 8.
18 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, 3.
19 Cf. Ibid., 1.
20 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatits Humanae, 1.
21 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 19.
22 TERTULLIAN, Apol., 50:13:CCL I:171.
23 Cf. AAS 56 (1964), 906.
24 Cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Declarationo n the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, 2.
25 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 25.
26 Cf. Ibid., 2.
27 Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1271.
28 Apostolic Constitution, Fidei Depositum, (11 October 1992).
29 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 62.
30 Ibid., 65.
31 Encyclical Letter, Dominum et Vivificantem (18 May 1986), 50: AAS 78 (1986), 8669-870.
32 Ibid., 51: AAS 78 (1986), 871.
33 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 7.
34 Cf. Ibid., 37.
35 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 22.
36 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 13.
37 Cf. Paul VI, Encyclical Letter, Ecclesiam Suam, (6 August 1964), III: AAS 56 (1964), 650-657.
38 Cf. Ibid., 2.
39 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 3.
40 Cf. Declaration of the Special Assembly for Europe of the Synod of Bishops, No. 3.
41 Cf. Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio (7 December 1990), 37: AAS 83 (1991), 284-286.
42 SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 10.
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