Springtime of Evangelization: The Complete Texts of the Holy Father's 1998 Ad Limina Addresses to the Bishops of the United States

by Pope John Paul II

Book Overview

Pope John Paul II addresses America The complete texts of the Holy Father's 1998 ad limina addresses to American Catholics on many important issues for revitalizing the faith and culture in the US.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0964261030
• ISBN13: 9780964261037
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Length: 159 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Contra the Naysayers

In 1978, within a month of his election as Bishop of Rome, John Paul II pledged to "commit my pontificate to the continued genuine application of the Second Vatican Council, under the action of the Holy Spirit." All thirteen of these addresses to the bishops of the United States relate to the concerns of those councils and reflect their language. Although I only know of Vatican II second hand, in the forward Rev. Richard John Neuhaus suggests that the visionary, stirring language of this eminently readable volume also recalls the pontificate of Pope John XXIII. What makes these talks the more remarkable is when they were given. In 1998, as the world fretted over dire omens of the coming millenium, waiting for the doomsday bug to offline the world's computers, in the Chair of Peter there was eager anticipation as John Paul II prepared for the Great Jubilee 2000, the Year of the Holy Spirit, and the Springtime of Evangelization. The reason for his optimistic outlook is given in the very first meeting, when the bishops of New York came "ad limina apostolorum," to the Vatican and the "doorstep of the apostles." "Freed from sin and washed in the blood of the Lamb, we have truly become children of God, able to turn to him in absolute confidence for we know that he loves us and will never abandon us." Could Billy Graham put it better? "The men and women of today," he continues, "are yearning for salvation. They wish to rediscover the truth of God's dominion over creation and history, to encounter his self-revelation, and to experience his merciful love in all the dimensions of their lives." For those unfamiliar with the pope's writing, the rest of this surprising book is an exercise in mythbusting. I was certainly taken aback to find this succinct comment on post-modernism as "uncertainty, raised to a principle by which it is denied that we can ever know the truth of things." I refrain from quoting a great deal more only to spare the casual reader and to let those enticed to read this book delve in for themselves, but at a time when music at Mass and the liturgy are under attack and review, we might consider this penetrating insight made a half decade before: "The use of the vernacular has certainly opened up the treasures of the liturgy to all who take part, but this does not mean that the Latin language, and especially the chants which are so superbly adapted to the genius of the Roman Rite, should be wholly abandoned...the Roman Rite is again distinctive in the balance it strikes between a spareness and a richness of emotion: it feeds the heart and the mind, the body and the soul." And who can fail to be stirred by the spirit of hope that runs through this book and its rallying call: "the challenge is enormous, but the time is right."