The millennium is all about the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. We will be marking the astonishing fact that God so loved the world that, 2,000 years ago, he sent his only Son that we may have life and have it abundantly.

That is why in the Catholic Church the celebration began, not on New Year's Day, but on Christmas Eve, when the Holy Father opened the Holy Door in St Peter's Basilica just before Midnight Mass. He thus launched what the church calls the Great Jubilee of the year 2000. It will continue until of January 6th, 2001, the Epiphany, that great feast which marks "the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Saviour of the world" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, p 528).

Jubilee - this word, so rich in meaning, is deeply embedded in the history of salvation. It is ultimately derived from the Hebrew for a ram's horn (queran yobel), because in Old Testament times, this was blown from hilltop to hilltop as a fanfare to announce the ancient biblical invitation to celebrate every 50th year as a year of God's favour.

It was a time when debts were cancelled, prisoners set free and land lay fallow - rested as it were. It was a time of openness, of seeking. In Latin yobel became connected with jubilum (joyous shouting, gaiety), from which the English word jubilee comes.

So, it is with a genuine sense of joy, if not precisely "joyous shouting", that the church greets the Great Jubilee of what must surely have struck the people of Palestine of that time as an event of no particular importance. Christians know differently. God became one of us in Jesus Christ. It is this belief that makes Christianity different from all other religions.

Society in our own time badly needs to reflect deeply on the significance of the Incarnation. We are going through a period of immense and rapid change and we need to create time and space to consider the fundamental questions: "Where do I come from? Where am I going? How do I get there?"

Many people, particularly in Western society, live as if God did not exist or they are happy with a very vague, superficial religiosity. It has been observed that the Western world is very highly developed in technology but really impoverished in spirituality. The result is that it tends to forget God or it keeps God at a distance.

The fundamental question today is surely one of faith. By faith I mean a free act by which one accepts that Jesus Christ is the truth and freely commits oneself to Him. The millennium celebrations, or the joy of the Great Jubilee, will be meaningless unless they prompt each of us to reflect more deeply on the true meaning of the event: It was Isaiah who first called that event by name, when he prophesised that Mary would give birth to a son who she would call Immanuel, that is "God is with us".

The existence of God and His presence in history are the foundations and guarantee of our authentic liberty. All Christians celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. So the millennium year will be an important year for me, along with other Christians, to look towards Christ, to renew our faith in Him and to renew our commitment to discipleship.

As we look back, we will see many divisions within Christianity and see that people on both sides were to blame, but out of that I would hope there would come a deep desire to continue to pray and work for unity. The importance of spiritual ecumenism cannot be overstated and the hope is that we can continue to build on the dialogue between churches in a spirit of genuine partnership.

Indeed, this Holy Year is a call to overcome indifference, not just among Christians but among people of all faiths. This Holy Year should strengthen Christians in their belief in God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ.

In recent times there has been a lot of talk about "moving on" here in Ireland. We can hope that we are moving on to a new kind of society where the bitter legacy of division will be left behind. Obviously this includes the divisions between Christians, but also the political divisions between nationalists and unionists.

My fervent hope is that all our divisions will become less strident and more infused with a spirit of dialogue and the acceptance of, and respect for, difference.

The church must commit itself by words and deeds and above all by prayer to creating a culture of life and love. The coming of Jesus Christ marks the dawn of a new era and yet two-thirds of the world still do not know Him. We need to develop a new energy to continue to try to carry out His command of bringing His message to the ends of the earth.

The church of Christ must recognise the confusion and the desperation in so many lives and offer people new hope and direction. We live in a world that is waiting and searching for something new. It is a search for fullness of life.

A world dominated by buying and having, eating and drinking promises everything but ultimately cannot give true happiness. Instead it offers a wide variety of substitutes such as superficial amusement, hectic activity, drugs, alcohol, lots of material goods, craving for prestige and power, but these are not really what satisfies.

We believe and we know from our own experience that Jesus Christ is alive and present in His church. That life and that presence is a source of immense hope for the world. We are all called to play our part in announcing that good news. We are also called to celebrate that hope and that life in our worship, in our prayer, and in our community life.

We are called to serve that hope by our solidarity with the poor, with those less well off, with the homeless, and with refugees and asylum seekers. We are to be in solidarity with AIDS victims, with prisoners, those on the margins of society. The church must always be a voice for the voiceless. The civilisation of love and life has to be built by the followers of Christ. It must be built on the foundations of justice, truth, freedom, solidarity and peace.

My hope for the new millennium is that civil society would respect its duty to honour the family as the basic building block of society and protect the stability of the marriage bond and the institution of the family. I also hope that the threats to peace and the causes of war, namely injustice, inequality, envy, pride, and lack of trust, be seriously addressed.

My hope is that the potential of the sacrament of reconciliation, as a source of pardon and forgiveness and peace, will be rediscovered.

As we leave behind the old millennium and move into the new one, we obviously find ourselves in a time that is tinged with sadness but nonetheless rich in memories. Endings are sometimes sad. They remind us of our mortality, our frailty. The Risen Christ tells us that, for His followers, endings are never final. God and love last forever.

Dr Sean Brady is the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh