2008's last day dawns chilly and quiet in Eastern Pennsylvania. Tomorrow's dawn will simply be marked with a new number - 2009. But for Catholics, even numbers have meaning. In 2009 we will complete the decade that begins the 3rd millennium of Christian history. There is no other reference point for calling this next year 2009 besides the reference point of Christ. Understanding history outside of this reference to Christ may be politically correct in the academy, but for Catholics, for Christians, for all Westerners, and for some in the East - our history is bound up with the great story of Christmas and the ancient joy felt in the human heart that a new dawn had arrived when Bethlehem welcomed its holy child. Christ brought fulfillment and hope. And hope, far from having roots in the political order of man, is rooted in the sacred order. One cannot promise hope to souls merely on political or social grounds because souls are not just political or social - they are also sacred.
At the change of the millennium there was a man with such great hope, proposing to the souls of the world yet another dawn, a new peace, a new era - an era where mankind in all its institutions and social dimensions would open wide the doors to Christ. That man was Pope John Paul II, who walked through those holy doors in Rome in 2000 with such strength and promise that I truly thought the whole world might just follow him through. Many did. I did.
His proposal to the world was that we need not be afraid of Christ and that seeing history as the story of salvation, as our fathers had, would actually give the world hope. "Indeed, it is Christ who is the newness surpassing all human expectations, the true criterion for evaluating all that happens in time and every effort to make life more human. (Incarnationis mysterium, n. 1). John Paul II believed that the reference point of Christ was not simply a remembering that 2000 years ago the Christian events took place. He believed that those events had perennial effect on the world and engages us even today - even on the eve of 2009."The birth of Jesus at Bethlehem is not an event which can be consigned to the past. The whole of human history in fact stands in reference to him: our own time and the future of the world are illumined by his presence"(Incarnationis mysterium, n. 1).
The future of the world illumined by Jesus? Do we believe it still? Do we have that confidence that John Paul had to walk through the holy doors again?
It is difficult to believe. The Holy Land is again spilling blood. The political powers in America and elsewhere are decreasingly aware that the authority of the State is beneath the authority of God and everywhere in the world the powers of the State are increasing - threatening both individual liberty and religious freedom. It is a scenario which John Paul II was well aware when he battled against the overarching choke-hold of communistic Europe.
But he still had hope. And his hope was not given him by any politician or State leader - it did not even come from his own desire to see peace in the world. It came from Christ. John Paul II was good at putting Christ at the center of things. Often the view of his face was obscured by the silver papal cross that displayed Jesus at his moment of triumph over sin. That is where the pope's hope came from. He deemed it worthy to propose that hope to the world that is so empty and so full of itself at the same time.
To him, there was another way of looking at history - a way that used to be taught in our universities. This view does not begin and end with the powers of the State and the movements of armies and governments throughout the world. He knew those influences well enough as he saw the Nazis overrun his fatherland. No, the true mover of history, the true center of the world was Jesus Christ. That view opens up the doors of history to newness and promise - not the promises of politicians - but the promises of a God who became man.
2009 is no insignificant year in Christian history. Let us do our part to obscure our own faces with the cross of Christ - and bring true hope to our world.
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