The Jubilee Door

By Fr. Christopher Foeckler, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

One of the principal symbols of a Jubilee Year is the Jubilee Door. The Year always begins with the Holy Father opening the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica, allowing pilgrims to pass through as they celebrate spiritually the special year of grace. In fact, every Cathedral—as well as several Churches in a diocese— has one of its doors designated to have a Jubilee door for pilgrims to pass through. Passing through the Holy Door is a concrete way of celebrating the year of grace, receiving a plenary indulgence for doing so.

Having gone to Rome to participate in the leadership meetings of Miles Jesu with the other members of the Branch and General Councils, a visit to St. Peter’s for the purpose of going through the Holy Door as a group was planned. We started officially with a pilgrim cross at the beginning of the Via della Concilliazione near the Tiber, walked the 500 yards to the Basilica praying the rosary, and went through the Holy Door as group! It was a real moment of grace! 

I had been wondering about the meaning of passing through the door and why it played such an important role in the Jubilee Year. Passing through the door at St. Peter’s made the meaning very obvious to me! 

Christ our Lord is the Door! So He tells us in John 10:7: “I am the door. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved…” A door is a passage way from one side to the other – Jesus is the door to Heaven! The Jubilee Door represents Jesus and passing through it anticipates our entrance into Heaven! 

The symbolism of this hit me so sensibly when I entered the Basilica of St. Peter’s. It was seasonably warm in Rome in early June and it was late afternoon, so the warmest part of the day. We had just walked to the place of the start of the symbolic pilgrimage and then the 500 yards or more in the sun; so by the time we arrived at the portico of the Basilica, we were sweating. 

Upon entering through the huge bronze door on the right side of the front of the enormous Basilica, the bright and warm sunlight of the day became shaded and a very pleasant cool breeze met us as we entered. We were immediately impressed with the soaring grandeur of the interior. As we stepped toward the first column, the larger-than-life saints look down at us from above. Then our attention was brought immediately to the right by the bright white marble image of Our Lady holding the lifeless body of Jesus—Michelangelo’s famous Pieta—bathed with special ambient light to highlight its presence and beauty! It was the truly awesome feeling we had entered Heaven—the main symbolism of the Jubilee Door!