ACT OF ENTRUSTMENT TO MARY MOST HOLY

VATICAN CITY, OCT 8, 2000 (VIS) - Following is the entire text of the
Act of Entrustment to Mary Most Holy read by Pope John Paul at the end
of Mass this morning in St. Peter's Square for the conclusion of the
Jubilee of Bishops:

1. "Woman, behold your Son!" (Jn 19:26). As we near the end of this
Jubilee Year, when you, O Mother, have offered us Jesus anew, the
blessed fruit of your womb most pure, the Word made flesh, the world's
Redeemer, we hear more clearly the sweet echo of his words entrusting
us to you, making you our Mother: "Woman, behold your Son!" When he
entrusted to you the Apostle John, and with him the children of the
Church and all people, Christ did not diminish but affirmed anew the
role which is his alone as the Saviour of the world. You are the
splendor which in no way dims the light of Christ, for you exist in
him and through him. Everything in you is fiat: you are the Immaculate
One, through you there shines the fullness of grace. Here, then, are
your children, gathered before you at the dawn of the new millennium.
The Church today, through the voice of the Successor of Peter, in
union with so many Pastors assembled here from every corner of the
world, seeks refuge in your motherly protection and trustingly begs
your intercession as she faces the challenges which lie hidden in the
future.

2. In this year of grace, countless people have known the overflowing
joy of the mercy which the Father has given us in Christ. In the
particular Churches throughout the world, and still more in this
centre of Christianity, the widest array of people have accepted this
gift. Here the enthusiasm of the young rang out, here the sick have
lifted up their prayer. Here have gathered priests and religious,
artists and journalists, workers and people of learning, children and
adults, and all have acknowledged in your beloved Son the Word of God
made flesh in your womb. O Mother, intercede for us, that the fruits
of this Year will not be lost and that the seeds of grace will grow to
the full measure of the holiness to which we are all called.

3. Today we wish to entrust to you the future that awaits us, and we
ask you to be with us on our way. We are the men and women of an
extraordinary time, exhilarating yet full of contradictions. Humanity
now has instruments of unprecedented power: we can turn this world
into a garden, or reduce it to a pile of rubble. We have devised the
astounding capacity to intervene in the very well-springs of life: man
can use this power for good, within the bounds of the moral law, or he
can succumb to the short-sighted pride of a science which accepts no
limits, but tramples on the respect due to every human being. Today as
never before in the past, humanity stands at a crossroads. And once
again, O Virgin Most Holy, salvation lies fully and uniquely in Jesus,
your Son.

4. Therefore, O Mother, like the Apostle John, we wish to take you
into our home (cf. Jn 19:27), that we may learn from you to become
like your Son. "Woman, behold your son!" Here we stand before you to
entrust to your maternal care ourselves, the Church, the entire world.
Plead for us with your beloved Son that he may give us in abundance
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth which is the fountain of life.
Receive the Spirit for us and with us, as happened in the first
community gathered round you in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (cf.
Acts 1:14). May the Spirit open our hearts to justice and love, and
guide people and nations to mutual understanding and a firm desire for
peace. We entrust to you all people, beginning with the weakest: the
babies yet unborn, and those born into poverty and suffering, the
young in search of meaning, the unemployed, and those suffering hunger
and disease. We entrust to you all troubled families, the elderly with
no one to help them, and all who are alone and without hope.

5. O Mother, you know the sufferings and hopes of the Church and the
world: come to the aid of your children in the daily trials which life
brings to each one, and grant that, thanks to the efforts of all, the
darkness will not prevail over the light. To you, Dawn of Salvation,
we commit our journey through the new Millennium, so that with you as
guide all people may know Christ, the light of the world and its only
Saviour, who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and
ever. Amen.

JPII-ACT OF ENTRUSTMENT/JUBILEE BISHOPS/... VIS 001009 (810)