The stones, lime and cements with which the holy doors of St. Peter and the other three papal basilicas are closed are blessed by the Supreme Pontiff and his cardinal legates, invoking the Name of Our Holy Redeemer.” I quoted these lines from a volume from 1675a work by Olimpio Ricci with a significant title Of the universal Jubilees celebrated in the Holy Yearsa text I found in an ancient library. The concluding rite of the Jubilee in the past was much more complex compared to the sobriety of the current one that many will have followed on television. It was, in some ways, the opposite replica of the opening he saw the Pope knocks three times with a silver (or gold) hammer at the Holy Door, singing verse 19 of Psalm 118: Open my doors of justice (“Open to me the doors of justice”). The wall, previously cut, was lowered, the threshold and the Papa passed through first holding a cross in his right hand and a lit candle in his left.
At the closing of the Door at the end of the Jubilee, the Pope sprinkled it on the threshold three times a little limeplacing on top of it three stones in which the commemorative medals minted in the Jubilee Year had been enclosed, and the Holy Door was walled up waiting for the future Jubilee.
We too ideally close our reflections which marked all the stages of this event and which followed the Jubilees experienced from many different categories: from communication workers to artists, from children to young people, from the sick to the disabled, from the poor to prisoners, from workers to entrepreneurs, from athletes to politicians, from families to migrants and so on.
All of them – like many pilgrims from all over the world – crossed the Holy Door of St. Peter’s and the other three basilicas, repeating the appeal of the aforementioned Psalm 118.19-20: «Open to me the doors of justice, I will enter to thank the Lord. This is the door of the Lord: through it the righteous enter.” It is significant to remember that in the Psalter there are the so-called “entrance liturgies” or of the “door”. Once they reached the threshold of the temple of Jerusalem, the pilgrims heard the Levites list the prerequisite conditions for accessing the cult.
It wasn’t so much about the external clothing, although relevant of personal examination of conscience. Thus, Psalm 15 lists eleven moral commitments: life without guilt, justice, truth, fight against slander, to harm towards othersto insults, avoid bad company, honor the faithful, keep one’s word, fight usury and corruption in public relations. In this light the Jubilee must also be thereto resume an authentic program of moral and religious life.
I lived a large period of my life among precious ancient manuscripts as prefect of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan. At the end of this year spent together on the pages of our weekly magazine, I address to my readers the suggestive greeting that medieval copyists sometimes wrote at the end of those Latin texts: «Peace to him who wrote and to him who reads. Peace to those who love the Lord in simplicity of heart.”
