John Paul and The Plan for the Next 1000 Years
One
The Plan for the Next 1000 Years
In 1994 Pope St. John Paul II wrote a letter to the world entitled Tertio Millennio Adveniente in which he said he was called by God to prepare the Church and the World for a new springtime of faith that would come about through three events.
The Great Jubilee of the year 2000, which would be a special moment in the history of the world in which God the Father would pour out an ocean of grace and mercy that would give us everything we needed as Christians to carry out the new evangelization and bring about the springtime of faith.
A worldwide purification that would dispose hearts to be open to conversion
The new evangelization
And his job was to get us ready.
Two
On January 6, 2001, St. John Paul II gave every diocese, every parish, every family, and individual the plan when he wrote Novo Millennio Ineuente explaining exactly what we must do for the new evangelization.
The first step was to get our goal straight. The goal of life is holiness – to become a saint.
About this John Paul writes, “This is a duty which concerns not only certain Christians: "All the Christian faithful, of whatever state or rank, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity." In fact, to place pastoral planning under the heading of holiness is a choice filled with consequences. It implies the conviction that, since Baptism is a true entry into the holiness of God through incorporation into Christ and the indwelling of his Spirit, it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity…It means to set before them the radical nature of the Sermon on the Mount: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48).
“As the Council itself explained, this ideal of perfection must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible only for a few "uncommon heroes" of holiness…The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living: the whole life of the Christian community and of Christian families must lead in this direction.”
Three
The Art of Prayer
In this letter, John Paul says that we need a genuine training in holiness distinguished above all in the art of prayer. He points out that the two greatest teachers on prayer are John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.
Our Christian communities must become genuine schools of prayer.
“However,” John Paul II writes, “it would be wrong to think that ordinary Christians can be content with a shallow prayer that is unable to fill their whole life. Especially in the face of the many trials to which today's world subjects faith, they would be not only mediocre Christians but "Christians at risk". They would run the insidious risk of seeing their faith progressively undermined and would perhaps end up succumbing to the allure of "substitutes", accepting alternative religious proposals and even indulging in far-fetched superstitions. It is therefore essential that education in prayer should become in some way a key-point of all the Church’s work.”
Four
A Spirituality of Communion
John Paul II then says we must, “make the Church the home and the school of communion: that is the great challenge facing us in the millennium which is now beginning, if we wish to be faithful to God's plan and respond to the world's deepest yearnings.”
Satan is the divider. He wants to isolate you. So we all need a small group of family and friends with whom we can share life and share our faith regularly!
A spirituality of communion means:
The heart's contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us.
It means an ability to think of our brothers and sisters in faith as "those who are a part of me". This makes us able to share their joys and sufferings, to sense their desires and attend to their needs, to offer them deep and genuine friendship.
It means the ability to see what is positive in others, to welcome it and prize it as a gift from God: not only as a gift for the brother or sister who has received it directly, but also as a "gift for me".
It means to know how to "make room" for our brothers and sisters, bearing "each other's burdens" (Gal 6:2) and resisting the selfish temptations which constantly beset us and provoke competition, careerism, distrust, and jealousy.
Five
This is more than a Rosary podcast
Our aim is to give people three things: training in holiness through the art of prayer that leads people to live a spirituality of communion.
To build a movement of people who live a simple way, practicing daily meditation on the Word of God in the School of Mary in the Rosary. In this way we grow in our knowledge of Jesus and the Catholic faith, we grow in intimacy with Him through prayer, and we grow in virtue by living a daily resolution flowing from our meditation.
To build a movement of people who share life with family and friends regularly, particularly on Sundays, the day given us by the Lord for family and friendship. Invite the people around you to develop their own habit of daily meditation, share the Rosary podcast with them, teach them how to do meditation. Then, when you share life together you will have something more profound to speak about – you can share with one another what God has been saying and doing in your life through your deeper life of prayer.
Invite those who are not interested in Jesus or the Church to share life with your little group, your family, and friends, because your little community of friendship and joy will be the place for them to experience the goodness of God and be sparked with the light of faith.