A powerful symbol of the Year of Jubilee was the opening of the Holy Door in St Peter's Basilica in Rome, through which millions of pilgrims walked during the past year. It was a symbol of invitation and return, of the coming back to Christ.
That open door was replicated in hundreds of thousands of churches and shrines across the world in the past year. Unprecedented numbers of people in Ireland responded to Christ's call in the year 2000. Many have come back to the church and to the Mass and the sacraments, in many cases after years of absence.
It has been a great year of spiritual and sacramental renewal, perhaps the largest-scale programme of faith renewal across the whole island seen in many years. It reflects the highest credit on the Jubilee committees set up by the bishops in each diocese and on their national committee, as well as on parish committees.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation in particular has seen a real revival; great numbers have come back to confession and have participated in penitential services in every parish.
Much historical research was done at diocesan and parish level. The Jubilee Year has been a year of grace, a year of great return. There has been comparable activity also in each of the other Christian churches.
But this is not the end; this is not even the whole purpose of the Holy Year. It is the prelude to new beginnings.
"By their fruits," the Lord said, "you shall know them." It is only by its fruits that we shall be able to evaluate the effectiveness, indeed the genuineness, of our celebration of the Holy Year now ending.
The purpose of coming to Christ or coming back to Christ is not merely to enjoy His presence or to be comforted by His love. It is not merely to be moved by the aesthetic experience of beautiful ceremonies and the artistic beauty of rituals, or to enjoy the nostalgic memories evoked by carols and candles and incense.
These are good and salutary helps to the worship of God and awareness of His presence, and we should treasure them; but they do not in themselves guarantee real personal encounter with Christ.
Religion is not about "feeling good" about oneself. Christian meditation is not "alternative therapy". Religion is not about so called "cosy certainties". The test of authentic return to Christ is the sincerity and depth of our prayer and the degree to which we have let ourselves be changed by Christ. The test is our conversion.
The purpose of the Holy Year Open Door was not ecstasy but exodus. Ecstasy is a rare gift of God, given to persons of great holiness and deep prayer; it is an experience of being lifted out of the body and out of the world and into the real presence of God.
But those who have enjoyed this rare and precious gift have usually been the same people who were most concerned in works of love and mercy and justice and peace in the world. St Paul is an outstanding example.
We are welcomed into Christ's presence in order to be sent out again to bring Christ into the world and fill the world with His presence. There is only one Holy Door opening into St Peter's and in the other Basilicas of Rome; there are many doors leading out. Each exit leads to a teeming, noisy and bustling world outside.
What we are and what we do "out there" in the world is a test of the authenticity of what we do and say on our knees "in here", inside the church, in the presence of the Lord.
THE exodus of the Jews from Egypt was a movement from oppression into freedom, from disempowerment into action. The state of the Israeli people in Egypt was marked by passive acceptance of their plight, accompanied by constant grumbling and com plaint.
Our age, too, is marked by grumbling and complaint, about the church, about politics and politicians, about businessmen and bureaucrats, about the state of society and the state of the world.
It is always "the others" we blame. At the exodus from Egypt God intervened; He took the initiative and mapped out the way to a new life, accompanying His people at every step and energising them with His powerful presence.
But Moses, and then the people themselves, got moving, got involved, took responsibility. They followed where God was leading them. Their story is a lesson for us.
Pope John Paul, at the outset of his papal ministry, said: "Open all the doors to Christ". Once the Holy Door of the Jubilee was symbolically closed to mark the end of the Jubilee, all the open doors of our churches now send us out into the world.
Strikingly, the Second Vatican Council says: "The member of the church who fails to make a proper contribution to the development of the church must be said to be useful neither to the church nor to himself or herself."
The primary purpose of the church is to glorify God by worship and prayer. But the development of the church also includes the transformation of the world by the power of the Gospel of Christ. For this task, the church relies primarily on its lay members.
Cardinal Cahal Daly is the retired Catholic Primate of All Ireland