Jubilees have perhaps always been, for popes, a privileged time to deliver their vision of history.
On this subject, it is interesting to reread what John Paul II wrote before that of the year 2000, in his Apostolic Letter At the coming of the third millennium. The 20th century was the century of sin, insists the Polish Pope, who cites the two world wars, the concentration camps, the experience of“terrible massacres». Faced with these evils, each of the modern popes would have acted, he writes, as a sort of beacon: Benedict XV facing the First World War. Pius XI faced with the rise of Nazism, fascism, the installation of a Leninist regime in Russia and the Mexican Revolution. Pius XII facing the Second World War…
For John Paul II, history has a meaning, which the Church reveals in a providential way. Pay attention to the signs. «With their jubilees(the different Churches) celebrate significant milestones in the history of the salvation of various peoples»he writes in this text, which contains several allusions to the end of times. Did John Paul II imagine it close? “It is difficult not to notice that the Marian Year closely preceded the events of 1989»remarks the Pope, in reference to the fall of communism. Didn’t Leo XIII predict so “prophetic” this fall from 1891 in his encyclical New things ?, wants to believe Karol Wojtyla.
A mile stone
At Francis, who opened the holy door of Saint-Pierre on December 24, before that two days later of the prison of Rebibbia, on the occasion of a moving celebration, the millenarian accents that we found in Jean- Paul II are less explicit, but we find in the bull of indiction (preparatory text) of the Jubilee 2025, Hope does not disappoint this concern to place the Church in time. “By virtue of the hope in which we have been saved, looking at the passage of time, we have the certainty that the history of humanity, and that of each individual, is not heading towards an impasse or a dark abyss , but that it is oriented towards the encounter with the Lord of glory»writes the Pope, who recalls that the year 2025 will also be that of a “very important birthday for all Christians” : the 1,700 years of the Council of Nicaea, in 325. “A milestone in the history of the Church»writes the one who regularly repeats that “time is greater than space”. The milestones were the Michelin markers, the signposts, of Roman Antiquity.
The word “time” is still mentioned 13 times in Hope does not disappoint. The Pope castigates “the Internet age where space and time are dominated by the here and now” and reminds us that times have an end, as Michelangelo represented in the Sistine Chapel. “The cycle of time (opens) to the dimension of eternity, to life that lasts forever”writes the 88-year-old pope, who projects himself into nine years: “This Holy Year (2025) will guide the march towards another fundamental anniversary for all Christians, he remarks. In 2033, two thousand years of the Redemption accomplished by the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus will be celebrated. »
It’s difficult, after re-reading Francis and John Paul II, not to think of Dante’s journey into the afterlife, in The Divine Comedyof which Canto XVIII describes very prosaically the direction of circulation set up on the Ponte Sant’Angelo to channel the pilgrims who came to Rome at the beginning of the 14th century. The Italian poet chose for his exploration of hell and heaven to take place in 1300, on the occasion of the very first jubilee in history, which he attended.