On April 11, 2015, before First Vespers of the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, the Holy Father stook before the Holy Door in St. Peter's Basilica. This is a special door that is cemented closed except during Jubilee Years. Pope Francis released the papal bull Misericordiaw Vultus (The Face of Mercy). "Jesus Christ is the face of the Father's mercy" Pope Francis says in opening his bull.
"Be merciful just as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36) is the motto he chose for this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. A Holy Year or Jubilee is a great religious event, held roughly every 25 years for the forgiveness of sins and the punishment due to sin. The Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica was opened on Dec. 8th, on the solemnity of the Immaculate Jubilee Year. Each of the 4 major basilicas in Rome has a Holy Door: St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major. The Holy Door symbolically offers an "extraordinary pathway" toward salvation with a special indulgence. For the first time in the history of the Christian Jubilee tradition, individual diocese around the world will open a Holy Door, making it accessible to everyone. St. John the Baptist Catholic Church was selected by the Rockford Diocese to be the Holy Door for the McHenry Deanery churches.
By calling the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis underscored his message of his pontificate: Mercy. It is his answer to evil, following the teaching of St. John Paul II in "Memory and Identity", ",,,the limit imposed upon evil, of which man is both perpetrator and victim is untimately Divine Mercy.". This is a time of special grace from God with the attached indulgences the Pope offers to pilgrims throughout the world...just by walking through a designated "Holy Door".
St. John's Church's "Holy Door" is the Divine Mercy. These doors do not simply allow us to enter a Church, they allow us to enter into a new way of living in the mercy of God--a special time of grace.
The message of Divine Mercy is simple. It is that God loves us--all of us. And, he wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy.
The Divine Mercy message is one we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC:
A--Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our
sins and asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon the whole world.
B--Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others.
He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us.
C--Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are
dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive.