Closing The Holy Doors in The Vatican

[BarbTherese]

 

Pope closes Holy Door to end Year of Mercy

Published: 21 November 2016 http://cathnews.com/cathnews/27655-pope-closes-holy-door-to-end-year-of-mercy

Closing the Holy Door

Pope Francis has closed the Holy Year of Mercy by calling the Church back to its roots in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, telling clergy and pilgrims that using “power and success” to evangelise betrays the Gospel message. Religion News Service reports. 

“How many times, even among ourselves, do we seek out the comforts and certainties offered by the world,” Francis told an array of more than 200 cardinals and bishops who celebrated Mass with him on Sunday in St Peter's Square.

Among them were more than a dozen new cardinals he had elevated a day earlier.

“The lure of power and success seem an easy, quick way to spread the Gospel; we soon forget how the Kingdom of God works,” he said.

Francis said the Holy Year of Mercy was a chance for Catholics to “rediscover the core, to return to what is essential” and to “rediscover the youthful, beautiful face of the Church, the face that is radiant when it is welcoming, free, faithful, poor in means but rich in love, on mission.”

Quote

The Pope’s homily essentially summarised the principal spiritual themes that Francis has stressed since his election in 2013: That the Church must identify with the poor and marginalised, must witness through service, and must always stress the mercy of God rather than doctrinal proclamations and rigid rules.

The Jubilee Year of Mercy that he proclaimed last year began last December and featured the opening of a Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica, as is customary for such occasions. But the Pope also asked that dioceses and churches around the world establish their own Holy Doors for pilgrims to pass through, and even prison doors could be used as holy doors.

In an interview published last week, Francis said the idea for the Holy Year came to him as an inspiration of the Holy Spirit. “I didn’t make any plan,” he said. “Things just came to me. I let myself be led by the Spirit.”

Photo: Pope Francis closes the Holy Door in St Peter's Basilica to mark the closing of the Jubilee Year of Mercy yesterday (Reuters)

 

[Spem in alium]

I celebrated the Solemnity of Christ the King while I was on retreat. During Mass, we all processed through the doors of the retreat centre which had the words "Mercy and Justice have embraced" above them. The doors were left open as a sign that God's heart is never closed to us, and the priest during his homily remarked that the Year of Mecy should continue on and on in spirit, as mercy and love are the greatest powers in the world.

[philothea]

My parish gets to keep its Holy Door (and attached indulgence) until January 21 (IIRC). 

 

(Gosh, I have missed the dancing banana.)