Traditionally, the five conditions to receive indul- ✠ Ask your pastor, deacon, or pastoral minister to gather Additional Resources Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy gences are: experiencing the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a group from your parish to visit a designated Holy Door Books December 2015 — November 2016 receiving holy Communion, praying for the , a rejec- in your diocese. A Year of Mercy With : Daily Reflections, tion of all attachment to Ed. Kevin Cotter (Our Sunday Visitor, 2014). sin, and a passage through ✠ Families can des- a Holy Door (such as one ignate a door in their By the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New homes as a “holy The Holy Doors of the patriarchal basili- Evangelization and published by Our Sunday Visitor: cas or another specially door.” Place a small designated door in your holy-water font at its Celebrating Mercy diocese). entrance and encour- Confession: Sacrament of Mercy The Holy Year will age all who enter and The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy also include other ways to leave to make the Sign Mercy in the Fathers of the Church experience God’s healing of the Cross. Mercy in the Teaching of the Shutterstock mercy. Pope Francis has CallawayKaren The Parables of Mercy ✠ When family members are in need of forgiveness and announced that he will be sending out “Missionaries of The Psalms of Mercy mercy, use the entrance through your own “holy door” Mercy” — priests who will have the authority to pardon The Saints of Mercy as a sign of reconciliation and peace. Make sure to attend sins such as defiling the Eucharist, which normally can the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Inc. only be absolved by the pope himself. Website Misericordiae Vultus (Bull of Indiction of the ✠ Remember also that Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy), Pope Francis, the door to any Catholic w2.vatican.va church can be a “holy door” if you make it so. Only.Visitor, Sometime during this year, come to Mass a few minutes early and make your entrance into the sanctuary a part of Review your prayerful entrance Sunday into the presence of Our Sunday Visitor is the largest English-language Catholic our Lord. Or stop by a publishing company in the world. Come to osv.com with For Our church during the work- all your Catholic questions, concerns, and needs. day to sit in the Lord’s presence in prayer for a Shutterstock Karen CallawayKaren short while. Making it Personal 1-800-348-2440 • Fax: 1-800-498-6709 • www.osv.com Embrace God’s Mercy What can we do in our own churches, homes, and daily By Woodeene Koenig-Bricker lives to celebrate the Holy Door in this Year of Mercy? His mercy endures forever. Psalm 136 Copyright © by Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. Copyright No part of this pamphlet may be reprinted or reproduced in any form. ✠ The Holy Father has This holy year is an invitation to experience the awe- asked that a Holy Door be some power of God’s mercy at work in our own lives. Inventory No. P1764 Make the journey and walk through a Holy Door this Nihil Obstat: Msgr. Michael Heintz, Ph.D. designated in every diocese Censor Librorum around the world, making a year. Give yourself the gifts that only Christ can give Imprimatur: ✠ Kevin C. Rhoades mini-pilgrimage feasible for — the gifts of grace, salvation, and peace. When we rec- Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend all Catholics. The same grace ognize God’s mercy, we realize that mercy is a gift to be that is associated with the shared with the people in our lives and around the world. In accord with the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Let us go forth in the days to come and proclaim like Holy Door in will be Francis has declared that the Holy Doors will associated with the local Holy Mary Magdalene upon witnessing the resurrection, “I be opened for pilgrims to pass through and Doors. have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:18). Shutterstock experience the loving mercy of God. For Review Only. Copyright Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. ope Francis has declared a Jubilee Year absolution. On completion of the penance, the penitent remain open until November 20, 2016, when it will be Opening Our Hearts Pof Mercy: twelve months for us to focus was then allowed through the “holy door” of the Church ceremonially closed and bricked shut until the next Holy This ritual invites each of us to recall that the “door” on and deepen our gratitude for the lov- to confess and be reunited with the Church. Today pil- Year. to salvation is himself. Christ is now open and wait- ing mercy of God. As with all jubilee years, grims still enter through the Holy Door as a sign of repen- On the Third Sunday of Advent, the Holy Door of ing for every person. During the Holy Year of Mercy, we the Year of Mercy will include the use of a tance and the desire to renew and recommit to their faith. the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the official home church all are called to pray that our own personal “shut doors” Holy Door, a specially designated entrance of the pope, will also be opened. In the following weeks, of sin and temptation may be opened and that we open that has spiritual and symbolic meaning for the other Holy Doors in Rome will be opened. At the our hearts to those on “the outermost fringes of soci- Catholics. same time, Pope Francis has asked that a Door of Mercy ety.” Pope Francis says that this year is “the opportune In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, passing be opened in “the mother church of the faithful in any moment to change our lives! This is the time to allow our through a Holy Door is part of the pilgrim- particular area — or, alternatively, at the co- or hearts to be touched!” (MV). age that all Catholics are encouraged another church of special significance.” In addition, “a to make, whether during a trip to similar door may be opened at any shrine frequented by Rome or a trip to the large groups of pilgrims, since visits to these holy sites are Why a Year of Mercy or specially designated churches so often grace-filled moments, as people discover a path Pope Francis envisions a year when people will in their own dioceses. These to conversion” (MV). become more merciful in their own lives and pilgrimages come with special bring God’s mercy to others. He is entrusting the extraordinary jubi­lee year to the “Lordship of graces, and they allow each of us to Opening the Door share in the many blessings of the Holy Year. Christ” and asks Christ to pour out his mercy on The ritual to open the Holy Door dates back to 1499 the entire cosmos. “How much I desire that the when Pope Alexander opened the door on December 24 year to come will be steeped in mercy, so that we “By crossing the threshold of to begin the Holy Year 1500. The door, which is bricked can go out to every man and woman, bringing the the Holy Door, we will find the shut at the end of a Holy Year, is ceremonially opened goodness and tenderness of God!” (MV). strength to embrace God’s mercy by the pope. Traditionally, the pope strikes it three times and dedicate ourselves to being with a silver hammer, while singing, “Open unto me the merciful with others as the Father gates of justice.” has been with us.” The threefold strike to open the door is symbolic. It – Pope Francis, recalls Moses’s striking the rock to bring forth water (Nm Misericordiae Vultus 20:6-11), as well as God striking the earth to free Paul and Silas from prison (Acts 16:25-40) and the strike the sol- “I Am the Door” dier gave Jesus on the cross. Jesus said, “I am the door” (Jn 10:7), Holy Door at St. Peter’s bringing to frui-

tion the words of the Shutterstock psalmist, who said, What Is a Holy Door? Pope John “This is the door of the Each of the four papal basilicas in Rome (St. Peter, St. Paul II Lord where the just may Mary Major, St. John Lateran, and St. Paul Outside the prepares Newscom enter” (see 118:20). Passing Walls) has a Holy Door. These doors are sealed from the to enter An Opportunity to Experience God’s Love through the Holy Door symbolizes inside so that they cannot be opened except during holy St. Peter’s A Holy Year provides an opportunity for each of us our leaving the world outside and entering years. Pilgrims fulfilling certain penances and then going Basilica to participate in and experience the healing Sacrament into the realm of salvation. As Pope St. John through the newly opened doors can gain the plenary after of Reconciliation. After having confessed our sins and Paul II said, the Holy Door “evokes the pas- (removal of the temporal punishment due to opening received absolution, we may also receive a “plenary sage from sin to grace which every Christian sin) associated with the special year. the Holy indulgence,” which lessens the effects of our sin here on is called to accomplish” (Incarnationis On December 8, 2015, the Holy Door at St. Peter’s will Door in earth. Pope Francis explains: “To gain an indulgence is to Mysterium). be opened to begin the Year of Mercy. “On that day, the 1983. experience the holiness of the Church, who bestows upon The tradition of the Holy Door most likely Holy Door will become a Door of Mercy through which all the fruits of Christ’s redemption, so that God’s love originated during the time when sinners anyone who enters will experience the love of God who and forgiveness may extend everywhere. Let us live this were given public penances that had to be consoles, pardons, and instills hope,” as Pope Francis said Jubilee intensely, begging the Father to forgive our sins

performed before they could receive during his announcement of the Holy Year. The door will Newscom and to bathe us in his merciful ‘indulgence’” (MV). For Review Only. Copyright Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.