Initially, the Year of Grace, a national initiative of the Australian Bishops Conference, was planned to run from Pentecost 2012 to Pentecost 2013.  On the announcement of the Year of Faith by Pope Benedict XVI, it was decided to extend the Year of Grace to run with the Year of Faith until the Feast of Christ the King, 2013.

“I have decided to announce a Year of Faith. It will begin on 11 October 2012, the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and it will end on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, on 24 November 2013........The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him (cf. Jn 4:14). Pope Benedict Apostolic Letter ‘The Door of Faith’ n.3-4
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‘The Years of Grace and Faith fit together perfectly: grace is God’s free gift to us and our response is the faith that accepts the gift. So the two Years fit together as neatly as God’s gift and our response. It’s when those two meet that we have the Christian life in all its power and beauty.’
Archbishop Mark Coleridge

Australian Catholics can thus look forward to a feast of opportunities to deepen and enrich their personal and communal life with Christ in the coming year. It is a robust and inspired response to the great call of both Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict for parishes to become ‘schools of prayer.’

 “Now is the time for each local Church to assess its fervour and find fresh enthusiasm for its spiritual and pastoral responsibilities, by reflecting on what the Spirit has been saying to the people of God in this special Year  of Grace, and indeed in the larger span of time from the Second Vatican Council to the Great Jubilee.”
Blessed John Paul II, Novo Millenio Inuente

by Margaret Mary Flynn