This week is Christmas!  On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis will be opening the “Holy Doors” of St. Peter’s Basilica, marking the beginning of the 2025 Jubilee Year.  The “Holy Doors” are special doors on St. Peter’s Basilica (and on the other Major Basilica Churches in Rome), that are sealed shut, and only opened during Jubilee Years.  There are many layers to the meaning of the Holy Doors.  First of all, they are opened as special doors for pilgrims.  During Jubilee Years pilgrimage is strongly encouraged, particularly pilgrimage to Rome.  There is much that could be said about the “spirituality of pilgrimage,” that there is a unique form of encounter with the Lord when we disrupt our life to journey and travel to a holy place.  It reminds us also of our spiritual journey, our life-long pilgrimage to the Heavenly Holy Place, our home in heaven.  The deeper symbolism of these Holy Doors, these special doors to receive pilgrims, was explained by Pope St. John Paul II in the 2000 Jubilee Year:

“In addition to pilgrimage, there is the sign of the holy door … It evokes the passage from sin to grace which every Christian is called to accomplish. Jesus said: ‘I am the door’ (Jn 10:7), in order to make it clear that no one can come to the Father except through him. This designation which Jesus applies to himself testifies to the fact that he alone is the Savior sent by the Father. There is only one way that opens wide the entrance into the life of communion with God: this is Jesus, the one and absolute way to salvation. To him alone can the words of the Psalmist be applied in full truth: ‘This is the door of the Lord where the just may enter’ (Ps 118:20).

To focus upon the door is to recall the responsibility of every believer to cross its threshold. To pass through that door means to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; it is to strengthen faith in him in order to live the new life which he has given us. It is a decision which presumes freedom to choose and also the courage to leave something behind, in the knowledge that what is gained is divine life (cf. Mt 13:44-46).

…Christ will lead us more deeply into the Church, his Body and his Bride. In this way we see how rich in meaning are the words of the Apostle Peter when he writes that, united to Christ, we too are built, like living stones, ‘into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God’ (1 Pt 2:5).”

Peace and Merry Christmas!

-Fr. Kevin

PS: This week is Christmas!  A reminder to see the bulletin for details of Christmas Mass Times this week!