The importance of the Jubilee, the Pope said, calls for a more complete understanding, for preparation, and especially for prayer. "For believers," he said, "the passage into the third millennium should not be another stage in the unstoppable passage of time, but a significant occasion for profitable reflections on God's design for the history of humanity."
"What is time?" the Pope asked, as a way of setting the framework for his talk. "What is its origin?" He brought his audience back to the fundamental mystery of creation, saying, "in creating the universe, God created time.... time is thus a gift from God.... each day is a gift of divine love for us." Thus it is, he concluded, that the passage into the third millennium should be seen as a special gift to the Church.
In fact, the Pope elaborated, the Incarnation began a "new creation," and thus a new measure of time. So he reasoned: "The event of the Jubilee is an invitation to celebrate Christian life as a period of renewal for humanity and for the world, whatever the difficulties might be that have marked these 2000 years of grace."
Looking to the future, the Pope said that "the years that are to come remain in the hands of the Lord. The future of man is above all the future of God, in the sense that God alone knows, prepares, and will bring about the future."
"Only God knows what the future will be," the Holy Father concluded. "We know simply that, in any case, our future will be a future of grace... For that reason we look to the future full of confidence, and we cannot allow ourselves to be won over by fear. The road to the Jubilee is the path of hope." .