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The Holy Door
To mark the 1,500th anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Arethas and his companions at Najran, the Jubilee Year of the Martyrs is being celebrated from 24 October 2023 to 23 October 2024. A shrine of the Martyrs was inaugurated and a Holy Door was opened at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Abu Dhabi. The Holy Door will remain open throughout the Jubilee year.
During this time, pilgrims are invited to make a journey to the Holy Door. This journey is a symbol of one’s own pilgrimage of faith. The Holy Door marks that point of change on our spiritual journey from one environment to another. Courage is needed to walk through a door, not knowing what is on the other side.
Our encounter with the Lord is a similar defining moment, a “door”, on our journey of faith. Jesus himself is the door, the only way to friendship with God, to holiness, and to eternal life. As Pope St. John Paul II wrote “To pass through that door means to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; it is to strengthen faith in him in order to live the new life which he has given us. It is a decision which presumes freedom to choose and also the courage to leave something behind, in the knowledge that what is gained is divine life.” (Incarnationis Mysterium) The disciple of Christ must leave behind vices, sins, habits or even the good things of life to embrace Christ’s life of grace and love.
The church building is an image of the Body of Christ and the dwelling of God. By passing through the Holy Door into the church, the pilgrim symbolically expresses his/her being a part of Christ’s Body, and more closely united to the Lord. To follow in the footsteps of the Crucified Lord is to journey with him through an unknown future, through the Cross of pain, trials, hardships and suffering to the life and glory of the Resurrection. This was the path travelled by the martyrs, who witnessed the joy that friendship with Jesus brings – a joy even greater than life itself.
The believer who enters the Holy Door with a spirit of repentance and the desire to follow Christ with complete dedication after the example of the holy martyrs receives an indulgence for himself or for a departed soul.
The plenary indulgence
For a plenary indulgence, the pilgrim must:
1. Go to sacramental confession within 2 weeks before/after obtaining the indulgence
2. Pray for the intentions of the Holy Father
3. Attend Mass and receive Holy Communion
An indulgence is not the forgiveness of sins. Sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Reconciliation by a complete confession, made in a spirit of sincere repentance. The absolution given in this sacrament restores a person to life and friendship with God. But the “temporal consequences” of sin to oneself and others - unhealthy attachments to earthly things, habits and human weaknesses, traumatic results, etc. - remain with a person. It is through prayer, charity and penance that the heart is purified of temporal punishment through penance, either on earth or in purgatory.
The Church is that communion of saints, the Body of Christ made up of many parts joined together in love. Each member helps the other, not only materially but also through the sharing of spiritual gifts. Every member of the Christian faithful is helped on the road of heart not only by his own prayers and sacrifices but also by those of the other members in the communion of saints. It is this spiritual help for the process of healing and conversion that is received through an indulgence.
The Holy Door is a symbol not only of our personal conversion but of the conversion of our community. We make our journey to the Lord together with the martyrs, saints and faithful believers who have gone before us. Courage and humility are required to be able to acknowledge the failures, divisions, mistakes, distrust and even violence that often plagues our lives and relations with those around us. In embarking on this Holy Year, we commit to humbly seeking peace, unity and reconciliation in our societies. We open the doors and remove the obstacles that block the Lord’s entry into our lives so that, as a Church, we may truly become a holy sign - a light that shows Christ’s love and mercy within a dark world.
“Open to me the gate of holiness, I will enter and give thanks to the Lord. This is the Lord’s own house where the just may enter. I will thank you for you have answered and you are my Saviour.”