The Holy Year with its pilgrimage forms a natural part in this journey of the whole People of God. The grace of the Jubilee is in fact obtained at the cost of setting out and of a journey towards God, in faith, hope and love. By varying the means and the times of this Jubilee, we have wished to make it easier for everyone. The essential element remains the inner decision to respond to the call of the Spirit, in a personal manner, as a disciple of Jesus, as a child of the Catholic and Apostolic Church and according to the intention of this Church. The remainder is in the order of signs and means. Yes, the desired pilgrimage is, for the People of God as a whole, and for each individual within it, a movement, a Passover, that is to say, a journey to the inner place where the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit welcome one into their own intimacy and divine unity: "If anyone loves me...my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him."[⁶⁸] To reach this presence always presupposes a deepening of true knowledge of oneself, as a creature and as a child of God.

Was it not an inner renewal of this kind that the recent Council fundamentally desired?[⁶⁹] Assuredly we have here a work of the Spirit, a gift of Pentecost. One must also recognize a prophetic intuition on the part of our predecessor John XXIII, who envisaged a kind of new Pentecost as a fruit of the Council.[⁷⁰] We too have wished to place ourself in the same perspective and in the same attitude of expectation. Not that Pentecost has ever ceased to be an actuality during the whole history of the Church, but so great are the needs and the perils of the present age, so vast the horizon of mankind drawn towards world coexistence and powerless to achieve it, that there is no salvation for it except in a new outpouring of the gift of God. Let Him then come, the Creating Spirit, to renew the face of the earth! In this Holy Year, we have invited you to make, either materially or in spirit and intention, a pilgrimage to Rome, that is, to the heart of the Catholic Church. But obviously Rome does not constitute the goal of our pilgrimage in time. No holy city here below constitutes this goal. This goal is hidden beyond this world, in the heart of God's mystery which is still invisible to us. For it is in faith that we journey, not in clear vision, and what we shall be has not yet been manifested. The New Jerusalem of which we are already citizens and sons and daughters,[⁷¹] comes down from above, from God. Of this only lasting city we have not yet contemplated the splendor, except as in a mirror and in a confused way, by holding fast to the prophetic word. But already we are its citizens, or we are invited to become so; every spiritual pilgrimage receives its interior meaning from this ultimate destination.

And so it was with the Jerusalem praised by the psalmists. Jesus Himself and Mary His Mother sang on earth as they went up to Jerusalem the canticles of Zion: "perfection of beauty," "joy to the whole world."[⁷²] But henceforth it is from Christ that the Jerusalem above receives its attraction, and it is towards Him that we are making our inner journey.

And so it is with Rome where the holy Apostles Peter and Paul gave with their blood their final witness. The vocation of Rome is of apostolic origin, and the ministry which it is our lot to exercise here is a service for the benefit of the entire Church and of mankind. But it is an irreplaceable service, because it has pleased the Wisdom of God to place the Rome of Peter and Paul, so to speak, on the road that leads to the eternal City, by the fact that Wisdom chose to confide to Peter -- who unifies in himself the College of Bishops -- the keys of the kingdom of heaven. What remains here, not through the effect of man's will but through the free and merciful benevolence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is the soliditas Petri, such as our predecessor Saint Leo the Great extolled in unforgettable terms: "Saint Peter does not cease to preside over his See, and preserves an endless sharing with the Sovereign Priest. The firmness that he received from the Rock which is Christ, he himself, having become the Rock, transmits it equally to his successors too; and wherever there appears a certain firmness, there is manifested without doubt the strength of the Pastor.... Thus there is, in full vigor and life, in the Prince of the Apostles, this love of God and of men which has been daunted neither by the confinement of prison, nor chains, nor the pressures of the crowd nor the threats of kings; and the same is true of his invincible faith, which has not wavered in the combat or grown lukewarm in victory."[⁷³]

It is always our wish, but still more in this Catholic celebration of the Holy Year, that you may experience with us, both in Rome and in every Church conscious of the duty of being in harmony with the authentic tradition preserved in Rome,[⁷⁴] "how good, how delightful it is for all to live together like brothers."[⁷⁵]

A common joy, truly supernatural, a gift of the Spirit of unity and love, which is not possible in truth except where the preaching of the faith is accepted in its entirety, according to the apostolic norm. For then although this faith "is spread throughout the world the Catholic Church guards it carefully, as if it dwelt in a single home, and she believes it unanimously, as if it had but a single soul and a single heart; and in perfect accord she preaches it, teaches it and transmits it, as though it had only one mouth."[⁷⁶]

This "single home," this single "heart" and "soul," this "one mouth" are indispensable to the Church and to humanity in its entirety, so that there may be raised permanently here below, in unison with the Jerusalem above, the new canticle, the hymn of divine joy. And this is the reason why we ourself must render witness humbly, patiently and perseveringly -- even though it be amid the incomprehension of many -- to the charge received from the Lord, that of leading the flock and of confirming our brethren.[⁷⁷] But in how many ways it is our lot to be in our turn comforted by the very thought of you all, in order to accomplish our apostolic mission for the service of the universal Church and the glory of God the Father!