Pope John Paul II
THE REDEEMER OF MAN
Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II
Venerable Brothers and dear sons and daughters,
Greetings and the apostolic blessing.
I
INHERITANCE
1. At the Close of the Second Millennium
The Redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of
history.to Him go my thoughts and my heart in this solemn moment of the
world that the Church and the whole family of present-day humanity are now
living.In fact, this time, in which God in His hidden design has entrusted
to me, after my beloved predecessor John Paul I, the universal service
connected with the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, is already very close to the
year 2000.At this moment it is difficult to say what mark that year will
leave on the face of human history or what it will bring to each people,
nation, country and continent, in spite of the efforts already being made to
foresee some events.For the Church, the People of God spread, although
unevenly, to the most distant limits of the earth, it will be the year of a
great Jubilee.We are already approaching that date, which, without
prejudice to all the corrections imposed by chronological exactitude, will
recall and reawaken in us in a special way our awareness of the key truth of
faith which St. John expressed at the beginning of his Gospel:"The Word
became flesh and dwelt among us,"(1) and elsewhere: "God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life."(2)
We also are in a certain way in a season of a new Advent, a season of
expectation: "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by
the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son...,"(3)
by the Son, His Word, who became man and was born of the Virgin Mary.This
act of redemption marked the high point of the history of man within God's
loving plan.God entered the history of humanity and, as a man, became an
actor in that history, one of the thousands of millions of human beings but
at the same time Unique!Through the Incarnation God gave human life the
dimension that He intended man to have from his first beginning; he has
granted that dimension definitively-in the way that is peculiar to Him
alone, in keeping with His eternal love and mercy, with the full freedom of
God-and He has granted it also with the bounty that enables us, in
considering the original sin and the whole history of the sins of humanity,
and in considering the errors of the human intellect, will and heart, to
repeat with amazement the words of the sacred liturgy:"O happy fault...
which gained us so great a Redeemer!"(4)
2.The First Words of the New Pontificate
It was to Christ the Redeemer that my feelings and my thoughts were
directed on October 16 of last year, when, after the canonical election, I
was asked:"Do you accept?" I then replied:"With obedience in faith to
Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother of Christ and of the Church,
in spite of the great difficulties, I accept."Today I wish to make that
reply known publicly to all without exception, thus showing that there is a
link between the first fundamental truth of the Incarnation, already
mentioned, and the ministry that, with my acceptance of my election as
Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, has become my specific
duty in his See.
I chose the same names that were chosen by my beloved predecessor John
Paul I.Indeed, as soon as he announced to the sacred college on August 26,
1978, that he wished to be called John Paul-such a double name being
unprecedented in the history of the papacy-I saw in it a clear presage of
grace for the new pontificate.Since that pontificate lasted barely 33
days, it falls to me not only to continue it but in a certain sense to take
it up again at the same starting point.This is confirmed by my choice of
these two names.By following the example of my venerable predecessor in
choosing them, I wish like him to express my love for the unique inheritance
left to the church by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI and my personal readiness
to develop that inheritance with God's help.
Through these two names and two pontificates I am linked with the whole
tradition of the Apostolic See and with all my predecessors in the expanse
of the twentieth century and of the preceding centuries.I am connected,
through one after another of the various ages back to the most remote, with
the line of the mission and ministry that confers on Peter's See an
altogether special place in the Church.John XXIII and Paul VI are a stage
to which I wish to refer directly as a threshold from which I intend to
continue, in a certain sense together with John Paul I, into the future,
letting myself be guided by unlimited trust in and obedience to the Spirit
that Christ promised and sent to His Church.On the night before He
suffered He said to His apostles:"It is to your advantage that I go away,
for if I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I
will send him to you."(5) "When the Counsellor comes, whom I shall send to
you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father,
he will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because you have
been with me from the beginning."(6)"When the Spirit of truth comes, he
will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own
authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you
the things that are to come."(7)
3.Trust in the Spirit of Truth and of Love
Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am
entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates.This
inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an
utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican
Council, which John XXIII convened and opened and which was later
successfully concluded and perseveringly put into effect by Paul VI, whose
activity I was myself able to watch from close at hand.I was constantly
amazed at his profound wisdom and his courage and also by his constancy and
patience in the difficult postconciliar period of his pontificate.As
helmsman of the Church, the bark of Peter, he knew how to preserve a
providential tranquility and balance even in the most critical moments, when
the Church seemed to be shaken from within, and he always maintained
unhesitating hope in the Church's solidity.What the Spirit said to the
Church through the Council of our time, what the Spirit says in this Church
to all the Churches(8) cannot lead to anything else-in spite of momentary
uneasiness-but still more mature solidity of the whole People of God, aware
of their salvific mission.
Paul VI selected this present-day consciousness of the Church as the
first theme in his fundamental encyclical beginning with the words Ecclesiam
Suam.Let me refer first of all to this encyclical and link myself with it
in the first document that, so to speak, inaugurates the present
pontificate.The Church's consciousness, enlightened and supported by the
Holy Spirit and fathoming more and more deeply both her divine mystery and
her human mission, and even her human weaknesses-this consciousness is and
must remain the first source of the Church's love, as love in turn helps to
strengthen and deepen her consciousness.Paul VI left us a witness of such
an extremely acute consciousness of the Church.Through the many things,
often causing suffering, that went to make up his pontificate he taught us
intrepid love for the Church, which is, as the Council states, a "sacrament
or sign and means of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all
mankind."(9)
4. Reference to Paul VI's First Encyclical
Precisely for this reason, the Church's consciousness must go with
universal openness, in order that all may be able to find in her "the
unsearchable riches of Christ"(10) spoken of by the Apostle of the Gentiles.
Such openness, organically joined with the awareness of her own nature and
certainty of her own truth, of which Christ said:"The word which you hear
is not mine but the Father's who sent me,"(11) is what gives the Church her
apostolic, or ...
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