Now, open

Did you get to see any of the coverage of Pope Francis opening the Holy Door at St. Peter’s to inaugurate the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy on Tuesday? Even if you did, here is another look. That I found the video so moving took me by surprise. Of course the dramatic opening of the doors, which apparently was hard to do from the looks of it, to the shift from seeing the doors open from the inside. What an image of Christ – the inbreaking of the kingdom. Powerful.

The scene that really had my emotions running was when Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI enters St. Peter’s, at about 1:20.  Good Lord, the man cannot walk without assistance, how frail he seemed. Yet he was there, and it was beautiful to me. Fodder for another post, but I always believe he got a worse rap than he deserved. Anyway, I remain grateful for his courage to resign. In doing so, he opened a door of mercy for the Church, and then God opened another door of mercy when Pope Francis was elected. On Tuesday, two men walked through the Door of Mercy, and and embraced.

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Say yes

Say yes to the difficult.

Say yes to the challenging.

Say yes to the improbable.

Say yes to the absurd.

Say yes to love.

Say yes to peace.

Say yes to hope.

Say yes to mercy.

Say yes to God.

Buck the trend, upend the world as God’s radical partner, God’s unlikely choice, God’s mysterious candidate, unknown to the world, but made for great things.

Be the gateway to promises kept. Be the portal to astonishment. Be the opening to wonderment. Be the way to passage to love. Be the door through which mercy flows.

On this Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, look from one side to the other, by saying yes to sin and death, by saying yes to a clean heart and eternal life.

On this opening of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, say yes, even if it means an almost imperceptible shift of your inner being, barely a crack where light can pass through. Say yes to it all, however timidly and however small.

Say yes today.