The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1913. A UNIVERSAL JUBILEE

New Zealand Tablet, 15 May 1913, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1913. A UNIVERSAL JUBILEE

HE present year is the 16th centenary of the tWI I M famous Edict of Milan, issued in the year £±7\\ Of 313 by the Emperors Constantine the Great JhJkks anc * Licinius Augustus, which put an end to the persecutions which the Church had been suffering at the hands of paganism for T JSfrffi nearly three centuries and permitted It. to I|F* come forth from the catacombs and to - occupy its proper place in the world. The events which led up to the Edict', and their far-reaching significance, have been already explained in numerous articles which have appeared in our columns. At the time when Constantine set out with his army to meet the challenge of the tyrant Maxentius to decisive war, Christians - were banned, proscribed, and treatedy as outlaws. Of them it might truly be said, ' The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have the followers of the lowly Nazarene had 'not where to lay their heads '; and to all human appearance Christianity, as a possible world religion, was doomed. .Con?; stantine himself was not as yet a Christian, though the

son of a mother whose life was,* so holy .that she was afterwards raised• to the glorious company of ; canonised saints as St. i Helen. Tire gods,• by , the augurs, had promised victory to the Maxentiah forces. Then the God of ;, the Christians,' the.. God of his- mother, came to .Constantine’s help. . There appeared the memorable vision, the luminous, cross in the sky with the words Hoc ;signojmnces ’ —‘ In this sign thou shalt conquer ’ - followed later on;■ by the appearance of Christ to him in his sleep with the command that he should , make a military standard similar. to ' the one he had seen in the sky and make use of it in his battles as. a salutary protection. With , the cross came the great victory of the Milvian Bridge in 312, in • which the Maxentian forces were utterly routed, and Maxentius himself - met his death. The Edict of Milan was issued in the following year. In it the two Emperors declared'that they had decided to grant Christians and all others freedom in the’ exercise of religion.' Everyone might follow that religion which he considered the best. They hoped that • ‘ the deity enthroned in heaven ’. would grant favour and protection to the emperors and their subjects. The days of bloodshed ; were over. A new era dawned upon the Church; and from henceforth Christians were to reap the fulfilment of. the . great prophecy of the Apostle, ‘ This is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith.’

V It was a great, moment in the history of the Church; and it is natural and fitting that Catholics should celebrate with, glad and grateful hearts the centenary of her emancipation , and of the exaltation of the sign of our redemption. In Rome an appropriate and elaborateprogramme-commencing; on March 30 and closing on December Bof the present year— been drawn up to make a solemn commemoration of the great event of the year 313, the chief features of the movement being (l) the erection of- a sacred monument near the Milvian Bridge, where the Emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius, which will serve as a memorial of glorious • deeds to., future generations, and at the same time minister to the spiritual- needs of the population in that new quarter; and (2) the promotion in Italy, and elsewhere of special -festivities and of solemn acts of thanksgiving to God. It is as portion of this programme that the Holy Father has proclaimed a universal Jubilee, in terms of the Apostolic Letter published on page 23 of this issue. The conditions upon which the Jubilee Indulgence is to be gained are there clearly set forth. The Christian Jubilee, as instituted by the Catholic Church, had its prototype in the Jewish. Amongst the Jews of old a Jubilee occurred every fiftieth year, when slaves were set free, debtors were pardoned, and, on the great day of atonement, the people were cleansed of their sins and began a new period of reconciliation with God. The name and the general idea of the Jubilee were adopted from the Jewish by the Catholic Church. She also proclaims from time to time ‘years of remission from the penal consequences of sin. But the efficacy of her Jubilee depends, not upon the vanished Sacrifices of the Old Law, but upon the Sacraments and. other means of grace left in His Church by the Author of the New Dispensation. It is still, perhaps; necessary to point out the indulgences by which a Jubilee period is marked are not ‘ permissions to commit sin,’ nor are they even ‘a remission of sin.’ They can take effect only when sin has been already forgiven on the usual conditions—namely, sacramental confession* of sins, true sorrow for them, and- a firm purpose of amendment. They are in no sense a remission of sin, -but of the temporal punishment which (as we know from the Sacred Scriptures) is often due to sin even after its guilt and eternal punishment have been forgiven. The doctrines and principles upon which the Jubilee is based are as old as the Church herself. Divine Faith is a living and active principle. It is ever and anon discovering new practical applications for the older truths—new exercises and devotions suited to the ever-varying needs and circumstances of mankind; just as warm filial affection finds different forms of expression in health and sickness, in youth and * old age, and as a healthy living human being discovers day by day new modes of application for the vital energy that is in him.

1 The first Jubilee was proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII., on February 22, 1300, at the request of many Catholics both of the East and West. - A pilgrimage to the' tombs of the Apostles in Rome was necessary in order to secure its benefits. Political troubles -Vere rampant at the time. But a s great concourseof people—variously 1 estimated at from 200,000 % to ':: 2,000,000 assembled in Rome from Italy, France, Spain, Germany, England, and other parts of : Europe. " The present Jubilee is the twenty-first of which history has a record. The most distinctive feature in the ceremonial Of the Jubilee is the unwalling and the final walling up of the ' holy door ' in each of the four great basilicas which the pilgrims are required to visit. Like the King'? Gate' at Jerusalem, the Porta Santa or Holy Gate in Rome is, as Cardinal Wiseman says, ' never opened except for the most special entrance.' The four such gates in the Eternal City were ; last unwalled .in 1899, on ; the occasion of the Jubilee- proclaimed to . mark the close of the nineteenth, century. .They were formally opened on Christmas Eve of that year after/ the recitation of singularly apt prayers from Scripture and other solemn ceremonies which symbolised the opening or commencement of the year of Jubilee. The fanfare of trumpets, the thundering salvoes fired *as salutes from the Castle of St. Angelo, and other ceremonies that gave an added splendor and impressiveness to the proclamation of the Jubilee when the Popes were still kings of Rome are now omitted. But. the spiritual significance of the year of remission remains unaltered.