Open Doors

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary are words that point to open doors which are offered by God through Love to the new heaven and the new earth. The psalmist praises the steadfast love of God which is known in thanksgiving as compassion and slowness to anger. The review of the history of the people of God gives the psalmist much for which to be thankful. The invitation into this communion with the Divine comes in the Christian tradition through baptism. The Book of Acts today presents the details of the missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas and how, in the words of the author of Acts, Luke, God has opened doors for the Gentiles. Friar Jude Winkler comments on the quality of love and perseverance in the mission of the Apostles to the Gentiles where they are able to be thankful to God for the rejection, imprisonment and beating which has accompanied them and which has been witness to the Gentiles of the Love which motivates their lives. The baptism ritual is one of introduction to the Love which Jesus prepares His disciples to witness in the text today from the Gospel of John. The immersion of the person seeking baptism in water has many symbolic harmonics. Water, of course, cleanses, as Chapter 13 of this Gospel describes, when Jesus washes the feet of His disciples. Friar Jude points out in the passage today from the last chapter of the Book of Revelation that in the New Jerusalem there is no sea. The sea was the source of evil, chaos and death to the people of John’s time. Immersion in water allows us to die with Jesus in the Baptism ritual. We emerge from Baptism as New Creations and as Father Larry Gillick SJ points out we are given a share in the mission of love as co- creators of the environment where deep love of the other through thanksgiving for the Love we know transforms the outsider, the modern “Gentile”, to people who radiate the Life and Love of God. The door that Jesus sees opening to His Glory, which in the Gospel of John, is the Son lifted up on the Cross to testify that God loves us to death comes through the betrayal of Judas. We are given the key to the experience of the New Jerusalem. We love one another as He as loved us.