It seems like just yesterday His Holiness Pope John Paul II was kneeling before the great, majestic Holy Door in St. Peter's on Christmas Eve before opening wide the Doors to Christ and crossing over the threshhold to officially usher in this magnificent Jubilee Year that has been like no other in the long and illustrious history of Holy Mother Church.

    Vatican City is the crown jewel of Rome. This special gem has been hewn over the centuries, cut, damaged, scratched, stolen, suppressed and in the 20th and now 21st century - polished. As Jesus intended, it is His diamond in the rough shining brightly from a mighty city within a city that over the millenniums has seen its share of invasions, persecutions, sackings and occupation. She has also had great prosperity and plagues, emperors and encyclicals, antipopes and the Axis powers, sinners and saints. After this past year, with the record swell of nearly 30 million pilgrims visiting Vatican City this Jubilee Year, the Church has glistened.

    The memories and impact are forever embossed in our hearts and minds. On Christmas Eve 1999 the Square was lit with lights and anticipation like never before. On New Year's Eve fireworks burst joyfully over the Holy See. Who can forget the solemn Reconciliation ceremonies inside St. Peter's on the First Sunday of Lent or the joyous canonization of the millennium's first saint Saint Faustina Kowalska on Divine Mercy Sunday? Each week St. Peter's Square overflowed with special Jubilee events that celebrated different walks of life the world over. Who can forget the World Youth Days wave of young from all over the globe who listened intently to the Popes forgiving words of love under the unforgiving Italian summer sun? There are so many memories etched in history from this past year and one thing is certain: Rome will never be the same! As Catholics we have taken great interest in following the activities of the Holy See each week as vocations from all walks of life have been honored and elevated with special Jubilee recognition throughout this past year in which nearly 30 million visited St. Peter's.

   

    And now we are a week away from the end of the Jubilee Year which officially ends on the Feast of the Epiphany - January 6th, 2001. It's over all ready. But yet it is just beginning for the Church each and every year recycles, if you will, in a reverent, sacred framework the Liturgical Year beginning with the four weeks of Advent leading up to the annual celebration of the glorious and wondrous

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