November 24, 1996

In the year 2000, Christian throughout the world will celebrate the beginning of the third millennium of the event of the Incarnation, the coming of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, into human history. Pope John Paul II has proclaimed the year 2000 as the Great Year of Jubilee, and has urged all Catholics to prepare for the forthcoming event with a triennium of renewal in Christian life and witness. He has asked us to embark upon a spiritual pilgrimage, seeking with God’s grace to revitalize our Faith, Hope and Love, by opening our minds with greater generosity to Jesus Christ, to the Holy Spirit and the heavenly Father, during the years 1997-1999.

With this message I invite all Catholics, and — if I may, also all believing Christians, — in our archdiocese especially to respond generously to the Pope’s invitation, and to collaborate with an intense preparatory program of interior renewal, deepened prayer and deeds of solidarity with our brothers and sisters around us, especially those in need.

The Apostolic Letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente (TMA — the Coming of the Third Millennium) develops fully Pope Karol Wojtyla’s reflections on the advent of the Third Millennium. TMA separates itself from a “milleniarist mindset” which, in past ages, has portrayed the millenium as a thousand year reign of Christ and his saints on earth, to be followed by the Last Judgment and then the coming of “the new heavens and the new earth.” Pope John Paul II does not, in the manner of some fundamentalist Christians, juggle biblical texts and prophecies to spell out exact scenarios of the coming of “the Last Days.” Rather he invites us to reflect soberly, in our minds and hearts, on the meaning of the mystery of the Incarnate Word entering into our human history and into our own lives: on the Son of God calling on us to collaborate with him in fostering the in-breaking of God’s kingly rule in our world and in our time: that “kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, of love and of peace” (Preface for the Feast of Christ the King) which is both God’s gift and our task. This promised kingdom, we are reminded, is “already” present among us in the reality of God’s redeeming work in Christ even now going on within human history, but also “not yet” — awaiting completion and fulfillment in the future, at the time of God’s own choosing. We are reminded that all Christians are in fact called as individual and as members of the community that is the Church, to labor with God to build, — through repentance and prayer, through deeds of solidarity and concern, compassion and justice, through self-giving and self-sacrificing love, — the beginning here in time of “the new heaven and the new earth.”

We are invited to look upon the coming of the Third Millennium, not as a time of apocalyptic signs and wonders, not as an omen of catastrophic events to come, but more as a unique moment of God’s grace, to reflect “on the prevailing frivolity and mindless consumerism of our age, on the utter seriousness of life and history, on the true significance of our freedom in the shaping of that history, on the need of repentance and renewal, on the demands of the Christian vocation at this extraordinary turning point in the story of humanity,” and for us specifically, on the emergence of the so-called “Asian century” in a continent where 97% of Asian peoples know little or nothing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the three year journey to the Great Year of Jubilee, the year 1997 has been designated as a year wholly centered on Jesus Christ (1998 will be the year of the Holy Spirit, 1999 the Year of God the Father, according to the TMA program.) We are asking Catholics especially to focus the coming months on the effort to open their lives as fully as possible to the person and message of Jesus. “Open the doors to our Redeemer!” We are reminded of that medieval prayer to Christ which was popularized by the musical Godspell:

Day by day three things I pray:

To see thee more clearly

Love thee more dearly

Follow thee more nearly day by day

Let that be our constant prayer, through the year 1997.

Let us make our first and foremost endeavor, in our personal lives, in our homes and parishes, our schools and other communities, “to learn Christ” through the renewed reading of the Scriptures (the New Testament above all), through prayer and reflection, through better participation in our liturgical celebrations, and with a new generosity of spirit, through deeds of caring and concern for others around us, especially for the poor and needy, for those who have less in life than ourselves. (If only a significant number among us were to make this program of renewal our own, what a difference it would make in our societies!) All these things we will strive to link with an ever-deepening presence of Christ and an ever-growing influence of the values of his Gospel in our Christian lives.

As I have urged participation in this triennial pilgrimage to the Great Year of Jubilee, I have been asked, “What is so special about this coming Holy Year and its immediate preparation? Have we not commemorated other great religious events in past years, “revivals” which have not made much of an impact upon us, both as Church and as a nation?

To this query I can only second the Holy Father’s conviction that this new Advent before the Third Millennium will truly be a time of extraordinary grace, a time of “amazing grace.” Do we not already see around us so many “signs of the times,” matched with so many signs of God’s presence and action among us? Not so much perhaps in phenomena like the proliferation of charismatic gifts, or in the multiplicity of Marian apparitions throughout the world (some of which, at least, seem authentic), but especially in the awakening among the faithful of true longing for holiness of life, of the practice of deeper prayer, of re-awakening of religious faith and self-giving in the lives of young people, and —not least — in the emergence of new martyrs in the Church of our time.

The coming of the Third Christian Millennium has surely an added significance for us in the Philippines as the dynamic emergence of “the Asian century” becomes more and more a reality. For us Christians, who are truly only a “little flock” in the midst of nearly three billion Asians, there is an extraordinary challenge: will Jesus Christ and his Gospel be part of the new world that is being built around us? Will there be room for the truth and life, the wisdom and love” which we believe are to be found in Jesus Christ; in the minds and hearts of our neighboring peoples?

The answer is, of course, in the mystery of God’s design. But it also lies with us: in our committing of ourselves and our lives more generously to our faith in the years to come; in our readiness to lend our energies to the grace and power of the Spirit of Jesus at work in history, and in our collaboration with the Father, for the coming of his kingly rule in this new Asia which is both his, and under him, ours to bring about — his Gift, and our Task.

(Sgd.) + JAIME L. CARDINAL SIN, D.D.

Archbishop of Manila

For the Feast of Jesus Christ the King

November 24, 1996