1998, the second year of preparation for the Great Jubilee 2000 is dedicated to the Holy Spirit. Christianity's third millennium will be a celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus, who, as the Creed professes, "was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary."A greater awareness of the Holy Spirit has been growing within the Catholic Church in this century. Leo XIII's encyclical on the Holy Spirit (1897) began this recovery of the Holy Spirit, sometimes referred to as the "forgotten God." Vatican II, as Paul VI frequently pointed out, made 258 references to the Holy Spirit. All the Eucharistic Prayers after Vatican II restored the ancient custom of invoking the Holy Spirit to "convert: and "transform" the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, and, in addition, to form all who participate in the Eucharist into "one body, one spirit."

Pope John Paul II's encyclical "The Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World" (1986), which began preparing the Church for the Great Jubilee, points out that the upcoming celebration will be centered on Christ and the Holy Spirit. The focus of the millennium celebration will be the remembrance of the "conception and birth of Jesus Christ" made possible "by the power of the Holy Spirit" and "the cooperation of the Virgin Mary."

The Holy Spirit is the guardian of hope in the human heart, so it is appropriate that hope be given special attention in 1998, especially "a better appreciation of the signs of hope present in the last part of this century." Mary was the woman docile to the voice of the Spirit, the woman who was "hoping against hope." In Mary, the Church sees a "sign of certain hope" (LG 68).

Vatican II speaks of Mary as "molded, so to speak, by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature"(LG 56). The Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary makes many references to the Holy Spirit and Mary. At the Annunciation, Mary received "the angel's message in faith and conceived by the power of the Spirit" (2); she was formed by the Holy Spirit "to be a new creation" (3). Attentive to the voice of the Spirit(20), her heart was the "home of the Eternal Word, the sanctuary of the Spirit" (28).

Accessed on November 5, 1998 from http://www.udayton.edu/mary/news/980203.html#item6_#item6