A Year of Open Doors!

 In general, we are invited to open-door days, to discover an institution, or to forget about shopping for a while, a few days for example.

The Church Jubilee 2000 has opened its doors, and for more than one year! It’s true that by dint of opening the doors of the churches of Rome, the whole world and even here, there will be draughts! From all the news going around, and from the Jubilee activities taking place everywhere and at a good pace, allow me to underline two in particular for the moment, which concern us: the Catholic Scouts.

A Respect for Creation

This is a more than familiar expression, affecting all of our behaviour; first of all reacting faced to this or that ecological catastrophe, where the list of examples increases every time. But also positively, because for a long time we love nature, and we teach our youngest to respect it and live with it.

At the beginning of this Jubilee year, the French episcopate published a beautiful text about the respect for creation. Unknown to media, this text can only cheer us up. It helps us to consider creation as the work of God. Until now, we have been accustomed to thinking that man had to conquer creation in order to be able to live and grow. It asks us to take on a new attitude: Man manages creation, as someone who produces for the good of everyone that which pertains to God; we do not own creation. It is a step of the heart, which leads to action and contemplation. The text of the Bishops ends with a quotation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: ¨We inherit the earth from our ancestors, we lend it to our children¨.

Forgiveness

Another event in this beginning of the Jubilee: The church, through the voice of the Pope himself, asks forgiveness for all the errors, crimes and violence committed throughout history and now, by Christians in the name of the gospel and of truth. This is a profound, sincere step and without a doubt, historical. I often hear criticism of the church, and of priests...; I’ve even heard in reference to a scandal involving a priest ¨C’est bien fait pour l’Eglise!¨, words perhaps justified because we must always convert. Yet I seldom see support when the church recognizes its errors and asks for forgiveness in a brave gesture. I don’t know of any other modern-day institution, which has made such a lucid effort. In any case, it is true we must live in humility.

Come on! Let’s be happy! These are things, which help us to live. The Jubilee has not yet finished. As for us – Which doors are we going to open in this closed world? Which stones are we going to move so that Jesus Resurrected can reach us? Which steps are we going to take so that man has life?

Michel Joseph

General Chaplain of the Scouts of France