This Midnight Mass went into the history of the Church. At twenty-three o’clock John Paul II solemnly opened the Holy Door and thus began the celebration of the Great Jubilee. The broadcast was watched by one and a half billion people around the world. And, he said to them that Christ is the only Savior of man. That He is “the Door by which He introduces us into the mystery of the Father”. “Tonight, before our eyes, what the Gospel proclaims is being accomplished” – he explained. “Yes (…) God loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him (…) may have eternal life (Jn 3:16)” He led the Church into the third millennium through the mystery of Bethlehem, precisely through the return to the sources – says Archbishop Mokrzycki. I even remember that the statement: “this is the truth that the Church transmits tonight to the third millennium”. The simplest truth: “God became man: He became man in order to make man a sharer in His Divine nature”. “Since that night in Bethlehem, humanity has been aware of it’ – said John Paul II. And, he decided that at the threshold of the new millennium it is worth reminding humanity about it. That Midnight Mass and that Christmas Eve, will always remain in my memory – says the Archbishop – because I have never experienced anything like this before. There was such a feeling that this was history. The contrast of this modest Christmas Eve supper with friends with the inauguration of the Jubilee dripping with gold. The same man, two different worlds. And, one God in all this, who is just being born. The Archbishop remembers that after everything, after the Midnight Mass, they talked a little with the Holy Father. He and the first secretary, today Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz. Father Dziwisz said that it was very nice, that a lot of people attended it, a lot of priests. That the Holy Father can be satisfied. And, the Holy Father was only smiling. As if to say: it has been fulfilled. It was a really special evening. About the last Christmas Eve together, the former secretary of John Paul II says that it was like …
With the consent of Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki – “Place for everyone”
Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013.
