Bishop Opens Holy Doors

Bishop opens Jubilee Year of Mercy with opening of Holy Doors

MORRISTOWN  With great joy, Bishop Serratelli proclaimed, “This is the Lord’s gate; let us enter through it and obtain mercy and forgiveness” on Sunday, Dec. 13, as he opened Holy Doors at St. Margaret of Scotland Church here and Holy Rosary Church, Passaic. The opening of the Holy Doors launched the Diocese’s observances of the universal Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy, which began Dec. 8 on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Bishop Serratelli opened a Holy Door — which symbolizes that Jesus serves as our only door to the Lord’s forgiveness and salvation — at St. Margaret’s before 10:30 a.m. Mass and another at Holy Rosary, home to the diocesan St. John Paul II Shrine, before 7 p.m. Mass. During the Holy Year, Pope Francis is granting a plenary indulgence — which removes all temporal punishment due for sins — to Catholics, who make a pilgrimage and pass through a Holy Door, whether in Rome or in their own dioceses. They also have to make a “worthy sacramental Confession, receive Holy Communion, recite the Creed and pray the Our Father for the intentions of the Holy Father,” the bishop wrote in his recent pastoral letter, “The Jubilee of Mercy and the Promise of Christ.”

“Open the gates of justice; we shall enter and give thanks to the Lord,” declared Bishop Serratelli, before he opened the Holy Door at St. Margaret’s — a clearly marked glass door with a gold frame and bars on the windows, topped with spires, that leads from the vestibule to the main worship area. “Brothers and sisters, let us go forth in the name of Christ. He is the way that leads us in the year of grace and mercy,” he said after opening the Holy Door and before leading the procession of faithful through it into the church.

Toward the conclusion of the Jubilee Year, Bishop Serratelli will return to St. Margaret’s, home of a large Hispanic population, and Holy Rosary, home to a large Polish community, to close the Holy Doors, the first ever designated in the Diocese.

“In communion with the universal Church, this celebration [the opening of the Holy Doors] marks the solemn beginning of the Holy Year in our diocesan Church: a prelude to the profound experience of grace and reconciliation that awaits us this year,” Father Hernan Arias, St. Margaret’s pastor, recited during the ceremony, as congregants waited inside or outside the church or in the vestibule. “We shall joyfully listen to the Gospel of mercy that Christ the Lord, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, continually proclaims through the world, inviting us to rejoice his love: a love announced again and again to every creature on Earth.”

During the ceremony at St. Margaret’s, the choir sang songs of praise, including the “Hymn of the Year of Mercy,” accompanied by a trumpet. After opening the Holy Door, Bishop Serratelli processed to St. Margaret’s altar, where he blessed Holy Water for the occasion that he sprinkled on congregants, while walking around the church. The Mass — also concelebrated by Father Jesus Peralta, St. Margaret’s parochial vicar, and Father Kevin Corcoran, the bishop’s priest-secretary — included Scripture readings, prayers and the bishop’s homily in English and Spanish. The Mass at Holy Rosary included readings and prayers in English and Polish.

“Jesus redeems us from sins that enslave us. He gives us the freedom to approach God, not in fear, but as sons and daughters in gratitude. Christ brings us into communion with God. He is the door through which we enter,” Bishop Serratelli said during his homily. “May the Jubilee bring us from selfishness to holiness as loving signs of God’s mercy today.”

Toward the conclusion of the Mass at St. Margaret’s, Father Arias called the opening of the Holy Doors “very exciting” and “history for the Diocese.”

“Thank you, Bishop Serratelli, for making St. Margaret’s a pilgrimage site for the Holy Year,” Father Arias said. “We are ready to welcome the pilgrims, who visit us.”

Bishop Serratelli urged the faithful to turn their thoughts to Mary, the Mother of Mercy. He prayed, “May her merciful gaze be upon us throughout this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of God’s tenderness.” Then, the bishop imparted the Papal Blessing in Latin, which Pope Francis is permitting bishops to invoke during the Holy Year.

After the Mass at St. Margaret’s, Maria Matos, a native of Puerto Rico and a parishioner here for 11 years, recounted the excitement that she felt, while walking through the Holy Doors that morning.

“It felt great. I love God. I thank Him for the Church,” said Matos, a member of St. Margaret’s Divine Mercy group that meets on Friday to recite the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and attend Mass. “With the plenary indulgence, we can live free from sin and in holiness in Jesus.”

[Information: St. Margaret’s at (973) 538-0874 and Holy Rosary at (973) 473-1578.