Pope Francis has proclaimed that 2016 will be an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, to begin in this holy season of God’s coming.
“The Holy Door will become a Door of Mercy through which anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons, and instills hope.”
Our preparation to enter the Jubilee Door of Our Lives begins by stoping to give thanks for all the doors God opens for us and reflect on Christ, the door to the Father, who knocks at the doors of our hearts, our homes and our churches.
The Door to Our Hearts calls us to open our heart to Christ. Like Mary, who bore him deep within her body, Christ gives us the grace to open our hearts to the conversion, unity, and justice of the Kingdom of God.
The Door to Our Homes provide the challenge to find ways to open the doors of our homes to our families, our friends and all who need us.
The Door to the Churches is the silent witness to all the moments of our lives. It is the door welcoming the new born child that years later is married by the priest and finally the witness at the end of life as the body of the deceased Christian is received into the Church. The Church door is the door to salvation, the portal of the Kingdom of God. Christ himself told us that he is the door to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Christ not only invites us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven through him, he even leaves the keys to his Apostles, assuring them that “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Mt. 16:19).”
Pope Francis reminds us that a holy year offers us the opportunity “to be touched by the Lord, Jesus and to be transformed by his mercy, so that we may become witnesses to mercy – because this is the time for mercy.”
(Magnificat Year of Mercy Companion, Jubilee Holy Doors)