Wezwanie do ewangelizacji w perspektywie jubileuszu roku 2000 w świetle nauczania Jana Pawła II

Abstract

During his last pilgrimage to homeland John Paul II said in his address delivered in Gorzów Wielkopolski that he had received a task from the Primate Wyszyński to introduce the Church into the third millennium of Christianity. This idea runs through in all the documents of the Holy Father; it is in them that he places his considerations within the perspective of the Jubilee Year 2000. In his letter Tertio millennio adveniente the Pope stated that the Great Jubilee is a “hermeneutic key” of his pontificate. The encyclicals devoted to the Persons of the Holy Trinity, adhortations and social encyclicals unveil the great programme of the preparation of the Church for the Jubilee of the birth of the Son of God. The essence of this preparation, according to John Paul II, is to take up responsibility for the Church and its mission in the world. The Pope stresses that a responsibility for the Church concerns all the baptized, including those lay people who not only are in the Church but also are the Church. The programme of the preparation for the Jubilee is most fully expressed in Christians’ call to evangelization. The Church puts this call into practice when it remains an evangelized and evangelizing Church. Today, however, taking into account the signs typical of modern times, the Holy Father calls upon us to new evangelization. Its essence is that it is to preach, with a new zeal, the novelty of the evangelical address, using new methods and forms to reach the modem man. The purpose of the new evangelization is to restore the Christian tissue of social life, first the tissue of church fellowships, and then, through the testimony of life, to rebuild the Christian tissue of human society. The call to evangelization has a moral character, for it defines responsibility for the preaching of faith, but also morality which issues from the latter. The new evangelization becomes then the preaching of morality of new man in Christ.