Christ the Open Door

Dear Friend,

“In the bread we share with the hungry, 

in the help we give to the poor, 

in the kindness we show to the stranger,

 we find Christ the open door.”

This is the first verse of one of my favorite contemporary liturgical songs, “As Christ Is For Us” by Janet Sullivan Whitaker. Janet’s words are humming in my heart as I anticipate this weekend’s liturgies. We will hear Jesus offer the disciples a new commandment, to love as he loves - to become that open door. In our second reading, we will hear how God “opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.” 

I am convinced that when we meet Christ’s love and become that door for others, we truly enter life as God intended it from the beginning. Life doesn’t get fuller than this, so why should we settle for less, even in the midst of a multitude of daily challenges?  

38 years ago, I walked through the doors of the Franciscan School of Theology, then located in Berkeley, California, two blocks north of the North Gate of the University of California. It was a big wooden door in a house that the friars had purchased 16 years earlier from the Jewish fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau - the first of many ironies I was to discover along my Franciscan journey! Life was opening for me, Christ the open door…

This weekend we open the doors of the Mission to Father Garrett Galvin, the President of the Franciscan School of Theology. Father Garrett’s work with the Franciscan school, now located on the campus of the University of San Diego, is all about placing “the new commandment” at the forefront of work and study. Let the doors of our mind and heart be opened to our wonderful brother and guest!

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm