The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
During Saint John Paul II’s inaugural Mass, he spoke to the Church in the power of the Spirit, “Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ.” Today, we find the Apostles waiting to receive this same Spirit, this time with openness, when only a few weeks prior they hid behind locked doors in fear (Jn. 20:19). Behind locked doors in fear…an apt image for the human heart with the onset of sin and suffering.
We all know what it is like to feel like we need to wear a persona, to put on a certain façade according to what we deem to be more acceptable. We do this to the degree that we live in fear and do not know who we truly are in Christ—how good we are, how beloved we are. Christ comes to free us from these fears. He is ready to enter our locked rooms and locked tombs, and is ready to open them up for relationship, first with Himself and the Trinity, and then with the world.
Lent’s invitation is to let go of all the things we put up before the doors of our heart, blocking the Lord’s invitations to communion. Easter encourages us to allow the Lord to pass through these doors, growing in regular intimacy with Him. Now, Pentecost ignites the healing intimacy of life with Christ in us, empowering us to run out of these doors and share the gift of Divine Love with the rest of the world.
But God does not want us to go out with the fearful façades we have grown accustomed to; He wants us to do this as ourselves, with a vulnerable heart, with a heart that keeps its doors open. Even more, with a heart like Jesus’, who even when pierced remained open. This gift of vulnerability comes as a fruit of living daily in the security of God’s love. It is our gift, given in the Spirit, made possible through Jesus’ self-offering.
Let us then go behind locked doors, not out of fear and hiding, but out of a reverence for the intimacy of prayer, with the intention of encountering the living God more deeply. Thus, we, like the Apostles at Pentecost, can then open our doors and go out proclaiming the Love for whom this world awaits.
Christopher is the founder and executive director of San Damiano Ministries, an initiative devoted to the healing of priests and Church leaders. He has an MA in Theology from the Augustine Institute, and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Franciscan University. He has nearly 20 years of ministry experience, speaking and ministering to priests, seminarians, and laity throughout the world. He has also worked as a therapist for over 10 years. He currently resides in College Station, Texas, with his wife, Stephanie, and their five children.
