Hartbeat

The Year of Grace: ‘What shall we do?’

Sunday 27 May 2012

By Archbishop Denis Hart
Kairos Catholic Journal

With the celebration of the Feast of Pentecost, we have begun the Year of Grace for the Catholic Church in Australia. In October last year, when we were gathered with the Holy Father in Rome, Archbishop Wilson told the Pope:

Through this time we will seek to contemplate the face of Jesus and to listen to his voice at a new depth, in the belief that only he can lead us into the future, that only he can make us one in faith, in hope, in love. Through this year, we will implore a new sending of the Holy Spirit, who alone can breathe new life into the Church.

Read more information on Year of Grace here

Only Jesus can lead us into the future. Only the Holy Spirit can breathe new life into the Church. In order to be a blessing to the Church, the most important thing about the Year of Grace is that we remain focused on God’s grace to us, rather than on the question, ‘What must we do?’

Ironically, at the first Pentecost, when Peter had proclaimed the Gospel of the Risen Jesus to the crowd in Jerusalem, the people immediately asked the question: “What should we do?” (Acts 2:37).

The inspiration for the Year of Grace comes from the Apostolic Letter of Blessed Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte (2001). In that letter, he strictly cautioned the Church against the temptation which always besets every spiritual journey and pastoral work: that of thinking that the results depend on our ability to act and to plan. God of course asks us really to cooperate with his grace, and therefore invites us to invest all our resources of intelligence and energy in serving the cause of the kingdom. But it is fatal to forget that ‘without Christ we can do nothing’ (cf John 15:5) (NMI, 38).

In this Year of Grace, we will make that ‘fatal’ mistake if we think that the fresh start from Christ which our Church in Australia so urgently needs will come about primarily through our own efforts. The Year of Grace is not a ‘new program’ for the Church. It is a call to respond to the grace of God that is already at work in the Church through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Here again, Blessed John Paul II offers us words of caution:

It is not therefore a matter of inventing a ‘new program’. The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem (NMI, 29).

When Archbishop Wilson announced the Year of Grace on behalf of the bishops, he said:

As bishops, we asked ourselves where we can turn with so many issues confronting us. Our response in faith is to start afresh from Christ. We make this call, firstly and most urgently, to ourselves as bishops.

As bishops, a great responsibility has been laid upon our shoulders, that of being shepherds of God’s Church in Australia. Yet, we do not make the mistake of thinking that it all depends upon us. Only Jesus can lead us into the future. In the political realm, we are always looking for that great leader, that great statesman or woman, who can lead us into the future. That is not the way it is in the Church. We are God’s servants, your servants, but we are only servants. We have a great duty, but Jesus is our only true ‘leader’.

So, what shall we do? We will seek to contemplate the face of Jesus ever more deeply and to listen to his voice with humble obedience and faith.

We will rely on Jesus and upon his grace, because ‘without Christ we can do nothing’.

We bishops cannot make a fresh start without Jesus—nor can we make such a fresh start without you. Therefore, Archbishop Wilson wrote in his pastoral letter announcing the Year of Grace that “as we address this challenge to ourselves, we invite you to walk this journey with us in hope”.

What, then, should you do in this Year of Grace? At the Feast of Pentecost, we remember that only the Holy Spirit can breathe new life into the Church. Therefore the most appropriate contribution you can make to the Year of Grace is to implore a new sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Church in Australia.

If this is to be a Year of Grace, and not a year of new programs and new reliance upon our own efforts, we must begin, continue and end the Year of Grace with prayer. Jesus promised his disciples: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you … If you … know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:9,13).

When we trust that Jesus alone can lead us into the future, then we will turn to him in prayer and ask him to give us the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who will initiate among us new movements of grace that will answer the many challenges before us as God’s Church in Australia. It is the Holy Spirit who will raise up new vocations to the priesthood. It is the Holy Spirit who will fill Catholic lay people with new inspiration and passion to carry out the many apostolates of mercy and love and witness that the Church needs to reach out to our community with the Gospel of Jesus.

In Novo Millennio Ineunte, Blessed Pope John Paul II asked the same question that the people asked at the first Pentecost: ‘What then shall we do?’ He answered:

We put the question with trusting optimism, but without underestimating the problems we face. We are certainly not seduced by the naive expectation that, faced with the great challenges of our time, we shall find some magic formula. No, we shall not be saved by a formula, but by a Person, and the assurance which he gives us: I am with you! (NMI, 29)

Image: Detail of Christ and Apostle in The Last Supper from the Refectory of the Abbey of Pomposa. Image © Araldo de Luca/CORBIS.