Doors are significant. An open door, a closed door, a locked door, they all resonate with us in different ways. Since 1300 AD, the Catholic Church has marked every 25 years as a Jubilee Year. From 1500 AD on, the Jubilee Year has officially begun with Our Holy Father entering through the open Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. This is a very significant door as it represents Jesus, the Good Shepherd, as He says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me, will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture” (John 10:9).
To help prepare us to enter the open Holy Doors of this coming Jubilee Year, Our Holy Father Pope Francis has beautifully dedicated this year, 2024, as the Year of Prayer, a time “to rediscovering the great value and absolute need for prayer, prayer in personal life, in the life of the Church, prayer in the world.”
The Holy Doors of the Jubilee Year had been opened for just their third time as St. Teresa of Avila was helping her own sisters to rediscover “the beauty of a soul and its marvelous capacity” by considering “our soul to be like a castle” (The Interior Castle, dwelling 1, ch. 1, par. 1). In The Interior Castle, she remarks on how “we know that we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it” (1.1.2). She observes how “there is a great difference in the ways one may be inside the castle” from the “many souls (who) are in the outer courtyard” (1.1.4) to “the saints who entered this King’s chamber” (1.3.6). For every soul, she is clear to mark off how “the door of entry to this castle is prayer and reflection” (1.1.7).
To help us to better appreciate the nature of this “door of entry,” a professor of mine at the Angelicum University in Rome, Fr. Paul Murray, O.P., would relate a story about Harry Houdini. During the turn of the 19th Century, Houdini was the master of escaping from practically anything. An event was set up to display the mastery of his skills. A maze of thirty different contraptions was devised for him to escape from in thirty minutes. The media was eager to see if Houdini was indeed that good. He was. In fact, he escaped from the first twenty-nine contraptions with plenty of time to spare. Then he came to the last lock, a simple door lock, by far the easiest within the maze. To everyone’s bewilderment, he stood by this door trying to pick the lock for a longer time than any of the previous twenty-nine contraptions. Finally, well within the allotted time, Houdini came through to the other side. All were quick to laud him on this amazing feat. The media couldn’t help but focus on the problem he had with that last simple lock. Houdini’s reply: “I always work under the assumption that the door is locked.” The Great Houdini was standing before an unlocked door trying to pick it open.
The “door of entry” is not locked! Prayer is not a challenge set before us to unlock the fountain of God’s love. Prayer was never meant to be complicated; in fact, it is very simple. That doesn’t mean it is always easy. Nevertheless, we tend to make it much more difficult than it needs to be.
Jesus, as we have already mentioned, is an open door. He is also careful to tell us how “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20). In a painting depicting this passage from the Book of Revelation, the door Jesus is knocking on has no handle on His side. The handle is on our side. Our relationship with God might be likened to the doors that are between two adjoining rooms in a hotel. Each door has a handle only on its own side. The coming Jubilee Year reminds us that Christ has opened the door on His side while this Year of Prayer prepares us to enter that door by being sure the door on our side is also open.
In the inaugural homilies of both Pope St. John Paul II (10/22/78) and Benedict XVI (4/25/05) we receive the encouragement, “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ.” Benedict XVI went on to reflect,
Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to Him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom?
To which the answer is given with resounding conviction:
No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation … He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.
The feast of St. John of the Cross (December 14th) comes at an appropriate time. As the Jubilee Year approaches, he helps us to realize how in our desire to enter the door that is Christ, “it makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord. Even if tied by a thread, the bird will be held bound just as surely as if it were tied by a cord” (1.11.4). He goes on to remark how “it is a matter of deep sorrow that while God had bestowed upon them the power to break with other stronger cords of attachments, they fail to attain so much good because they do not become detached from some childish thing which God has requested them to conquer out of love for Him” (1.11.5).
How true this is! Take a moment to reflect on the little things that can keep us from allowing Christ to enter fully into our lives. The writings of St. John of the Cross can sometimes be considered as too difficult to comprehend, but he really isn’t that complicated. The path he marks off is not always easy, but it is simple. Simple like a bird, that is “never advancing because they lack the courage to make a complete break with some little satisfaction, attachment, or affection (which are all about the same), and thereby never reaching the port of perfection, which requires no more than a sudden flap of one’s wings to tear the thread of attachment” (1.11.4).
With these final words of St. John of the Cross in this Year of Prayer, let us flap our wings out of love for Christ as we strive to fly towards the open doors of this Jubilee Year.
Editor’s Note: Fr. Wayne Sattler’s book, And You Will Find Rest: What God Does in Prayer, is available from Sophia Institute Press.
Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash
