From the Website of Vatican
links https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-06/pope-francis-calls-for-church-and-society-of-open-doors.html
Pope: We need the Lord to open the doors of our hearts
Pope Francis reflects on the image of ‘doors’ in his homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul.
In his homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter, Pope reflected on the image of “doors” – the doors that opened up when Peter was freed from prison, and the metaphorical doors that opened for Paul when he was converted on the road to Damascus and later when opened the doors of evangelization.
For both Peter and Paul, the encounter with the Lord was “a true and properly paschal experience; they were set free: the doors of a new life opened before them.”
Saints Peter and Paul
A new Exodus
Expounding on the first reading, Pope Francis noted that the miraculous
release of St Peter recalled the experience of the Passover. “The
account is that of a new Exodus. God delivers His Church, delivers His
people who are in chains, and once again reveals Himself as the God of
mercy who sustains them on the journey.”
The Pope goes on to
remind the faithful that the doors to Peter’s prison were opened by the
Lord. He also points out a curious detail: “the doors of the prison are
opened through the strength of the Lord, but he struggles to enter into
the house of the Christian community.” Pope Francis lamented that too
often our communities “do not learn this wisdom of opening doors.”
A burning zeal for evangelization
Paul’s
conversion, too, is primarily a “paschal” experience, the Pope
continued. St Paul is changed by his encounter with Christ crucified.
“Yet this does not lead to a consoling, inward-looking religiosity as
some movements in the Church present to us today, a drawing room
spirituality,” the Pope said. On the contrary, “the encounter with the
Lord ignites in the life of Paul a burning zeal for evangelization.”
As
he preached the Gospel, St Paul often used the image of open doors, a
grace experienced also by St Peter. Both “witnessed first-hand the work
of God, who opened the doors of their interior prisons but also the
actual prisons into which they were thrown because of the Gospel.”
“The
Lord also opened before them the doors of evangelization,” the Pope
added, “so they could have the joy of encountering their brothers and
sisters in the fledgling communities and bring the hope of the Gospel to
all.”
Pope Francis confers a pallia to a Metropolitan Archbishop during the Mass
Zealous shepherds who open doors
Then,
recalling the Metropolitan Archbishops who received the pallium during
the Mass, Pope Francis invited them, “in communion with Peter and
following the example of Christ, the ‘gate for the sheep’” to be
“zealous shepherds who open the doors of the Gospel, and through their
ministry, help to build a Church and a society of open doors.”
Finally,
after a word of greeting for the delegation of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, Pope Francis prayed that Saints Peter and Paul might “help
us to open the door of our lives to the Lord Jesus” before invoking
their intercession “for us, for this City of Rome, and for the whole
world.”
Pope
Francis and the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch of
Constantinople pray before the "Confessio" in St Peter's Basilica
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