At Christmas Eve Mass, Pope Looks Ahead

VATICAN CITY —  A stooped, slowed Pope John Paul II celebrated the 21st Christmas of his papacy with his mind on the next one, looking forward to the jubilee year that will begin Christianity’s third millennium.

John Paul delivered his Christmas Eve homily in a floodlit St. Peter’s Basilica. From there, on Dec. 24, 1999, the pope hopes to launch celebrations for 2000 with the symbolic opening of a door that is sealed during all but church anniversary years.

“My thoughts already turn to Christmas next year, when, God willing, the church shall inaugurate the great jubilee with the opening of the holy door,” John Paul said in a midnight Mass televised in about 40 countries.

The phrase was a slight change in wording from his prepared text. In the original, the pope said he himself would inaugurate the jubilee.

Popes usually inaugurate jubilee years, which mark key anniversaries in the history of the church and Christianity, by opening the normally sealed Holy Door of St. Peter’s. They traditionally use a silver hammer to knock through the barrier blocking the door.

In 1983, the last jubilee year, the pope used a bronze hammer and the door was unlocked for him.

The increasingly frail John Paul, 78, who became pope in October 1978, had kept his schedule light for days to rest for the midnight Mass.

Flu and a fever forced him to cancel some events last week.

John Paul walked slowly up the long aisle of the basilica. At times, when he had to stand during the more than 1 1/2-hour service, he clutched his silver staff with both hands, the rod higher than his own bent figure.

But he smiled when children came forward to the altar to present ceremonial gifts. Leaning forward, he patted their heads.

At midnight, church bells rang across Rome to mark the coming of Christmas.

The pope no longer celebrates Mass on Christmas morning to allow himself more time to rest after the midnight Mass.

He is scheduled to keep up his tradition of appearing before tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square at noon on Christmas Day, when he reads a Christmas message and gives holiday greetings in dozens of languages.