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Speaking to a congregation that filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral for a Mass inaugurating the Year of Mercy in the archdiocese, Cardinal Dolan cited examples from Scripture that illuminated the role of doors, especially in the Christian and Jewish traditions, to symbolize “an openness to God, especially to his grace and mercy.”
The cardinal spoke about “the doors of Paradise, the Gates of Paradise, that were closed after Original Sin, waiting for someone to come open them.
“We know who that is, we’re awaiting His birthday now,” the cardinal said in his homily for Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Lent, on Dec. 13.
The cardinal also pointed to the Jewish chant in the Psalms: “Open wide the doors and let the just one enter.” And the parable in which Jesus, speaking about the persistence of prayer, said, “Knock and the door will be opened.”
The cardinal, in fact, had walked through the cathedral’s Holy Doors, on the 51st street side near Fifth Avenue, which he had opened at the beginning of the 10:15 a.m. Mass.
“This is the Lord’s door. Let us enter through it and pray for mercy and forgiveness,” the cardinal prayed during the rite.
Holy Doors were also opened in rites at four other churches and shrines in the archdiocese that day. They are the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, where the doors were opened at the Shrine Church of Most Precious Blood in Lower Manhattan; St. Frances Cabrini Shrine in Upper Manhattan; the National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Stony Point; and the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middletown.
During the Jubilee Year, which Pope Francis opened at a Mass and rite at St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, pilgrims can obtain a Jubilee Indulgence if they “enter a Door of Mercy with the proper intention and disposition, and fulfill the conditions ordinarily attached to a plenary indulgence.” The conditions have been detailed in a decree that Cardinal Dolan issued for the Year of Mercy. (Excerpts of the decree were published in the Nov. 26 edition of CNY. A copy of the full decree is available on archny.org.)
The Year of Mercy, which will continue until Nov. 20, 2016, will be celebrated in numerous ways in the archdiocese. (See Editor’s Report on Page 4.)
The cardinal, again in his homily, spoke about the “resonance” we feel in “our human hearts” that comes from turning the key and opening the door when we return home at the end of a long day.
“You think of the security, the safety, the warmth, the welcome, the family, the food, the friends, the sense of acceptance and the warm embrace that opening a door always symbolizes,” he said.
In this Year of Mercy, Pope Francis’ opening of the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica and Cardinal Dolan’s repeating of the act at St. Patrick’s can help the faithful understand that “God’s tender, loving, unfailing mercy is always open, like an open door,” the cardinal said.
After the Mass, Miriam Garzon, a visitor to New York from Miami, spoke to CNY while still seated in her pew near the back of the cathedral. She said she was praying, especially at the beginning of this Year of Mercy, “for direction and peace, not just world peace but internal peace—to learn to be content.”
She said one of her gifts is to be able to be open to encounters with other people, even those she does not know at all. Often, those meetings can be a source of unexpected blessings, she said.
“You don’t know who you’ll encounter who will give you the peace you are looking for,” she said.
