The year 1999 is the third year of the three year preparation designated by Pope John Paul II to usher in the new millennium; the 2000th anniversary of the coming of Christ into our world and the beginning of the third millennium of the Church's existence. Following the year of Christ the Son in 1997 and the year of the Holy Spirit in 1998, the year 1999 has been designated "the year of the Father". The Church's faith is Trinitarian. Every Sunday we profess in the Creed that we believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We can also say that there is a certain "order" in how we know the Triune God. Through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can come to the Father. This is the reason for the three-year progression from the Son to the Holy Spirit to the Father.
As Christians our understanding of God the Father is different from the belief of non-Christian religions in a God who is "creator" and "father" to us. When we profess belief in "God the Father", we are not simply making a statement about how God relates to us as father. Rather, we are making a claim about who God is in Himself. God did not have to create anything in order to be Father. Within God, there is a relationship of fatherhood; from the Father to the Son. Our faith in God the Father is thus necessarily connected with our faith that God is triune.
Obviously, no one could know the inner life of God and the relationships among the three divine Persons unless God Himself revealed it. As we focus on God the Father this year, we are therefore called to re-appropriate how we have received this revelation of God the Father. No one can know God as Father except through Jesus Christ. This truth is asserted emphatically by the Lord himself: "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me" (John 14:6). The basic theme of the year of the Father is this notion of coming to the Father in heaven through Jesus Christ. As Pope John Paul II explains:
"the whole of the Christian life is like a great pilgrimage to the house of the Father. In this third year the sense of being on a journey to the Father should encourage everyone to undertake, by holding fast to Christ the Redeemer, a journey of authentic conversion." (On Preparation for the Jubilee of the Year 2000, nos. 49, 50)
The other themes that the Pope asks the Church to focus on this year flow out of this overarching focus upon God the Father and our pilgrimage toward Him in Christ. There are four subsidiary themes for 1999: renewing our appreciation of the Sacrament of Penance; the theological virtue of charity; and Mary as a daughter of the Father who reveals perfect love of God and neighbor. These themes indicate that our faith in God the Father is never an abstract theory: it has practical consequences and makes demands on how we live. The revelation of God as Father by Jesus Christ is also a call addressed to all human beings to draw close to the Father through Christ. As the Pope explains in the quote above, this requires authentic conversion; turning from sin and choosing the goods that reveal us to be children of the Father in Heaven. The necessary element of conversion involved in our relationship with the Father enables us to see why the Pope draws attention to the Sacrament of Penance in this year of the Father.
In a similar way, the emphasis on the theological virtue of charity/love flows out of the call for conversion and a renewed practice of the Sacrament of Penance. As the Pope explains: "the call to conversion [is] the indispensable condition of Christian love. It will therefore be necessary, especially during this year, to emphasize the theological virtue of charity" (no. 50). The requirements of charity are summed up in the great commandment: love of God, and love of neighbor. The Pope declares that this twofold love sums up "the moral life of the believer. It has in God its source and goal" (no. 50). Within this emphasis on charity, John Paul especially accents the Church's commitment to the poor: "the preferential option for the poor and the outcast." The "civilization of love" promoted by the Pope also requires a renewed defense of the family and marriage as the basic cell of society. The stability of family life is threatened by many forces today. The focus upon God the Father, upon conversion, the sacrament of Penance and charity can indeed open up many families and married couples to authentic renewal.
As the Church walks in this path of renewal, the Pope asserts that "Mary Most Holy, the highly favored daughter of the Father, will appear before the eyes of believers as the perfect model of love towards both God and neighbor" (no. 54). Mary responded to the Father's call "with complete openness", saying "behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38). Her perfect resistance to all temptation and sin enabled her to give herself in love to God and all those around her. The Mother of God is indeed a model of how to live as a child of God, carrying out all the varied demands of love.
Within the program of prayer, reflection and renewal sketched out for 1999, John Paul also singles out two particular commitments that should engage the Church in this year: "meeting the challenge of secularism and dialogue with the great religions" (no. 52). By "secularism", the Pope means all those movements within the modern world that tend to relegate God and the demands of faith to a private inconsequential area of human life. Some of the common expressions of secularism are:
In the coming year, The California Mission will explore the different themes that the Pope has set before the Church for the year 1999. It is the Year of the Father. It is a time for deeper conversion, for turning back to God with all our hearts. It is a time to confront the sin in our lives and to seek a new outpouring of God's love into our hearts through a renewed practice of the sacrament of Penance. This experience of the love of God the Father is absolutely necessary to preserve and strengthen Christian families and marriages. As the Catholic faithful turn back to the Father this year and receive His love, they will be given the strength to reach out to others especially the poor' with the same love of God that comes to us in Jesus Christ. As we commit ourselves to this path of renewal for 1999, we can take to heart in a special way the exhortation of the prophet Isaiah: "Come let us climb the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob" (Isa 2:3). Through Jesus Christ; the way, the Truth and the Life: let us all return to our Father's house, united and strengthened in His love.