When the Door Is Closed… and the Heart Open: An Art Reflection for the Jubilee Year

(Photo by Elizabeth Zelasko)

World Youth Day in 2005 was the first time my feet left the soil of my homeland and touched ground overseas. I was attending the global gathering of Catholic youth held every three to four years, that year hosted in Germany, but our itinerary first dropped us in the heart of the Catholic Church: Rome. It was the closest I had ever come to Heaven: the art, the churches, the food… did I mention the art?

Just five years earlier, the Jubilee Year of 2000 had run its course in the city. I stood at St. John Lateran, the Pope’s Cathedral Church in Rome, in front of a closed Holy Door. That very door had been opened for the Jubilee, welcoming pilgrims from around the world as they passed through, symbolically leaving behind their sins and stepping into mercy. Though it was closed when I saw it, the weight of its meaning lingered in the air — almost as if the marble beneath had absorbed the burdens surrendered by thousands of souls. The sculpted relief art on the door seemed to sum up my entire faith in one image. I couldn’t peel my eyes away. I stood there wishing the door had been opened to me. I was single then, and newly rediscovering my love for God and the faith after a long, winding season of distance. I didn’t know I would soon move to Colorado, beginning a new chapter.

Nearly 20 years later, I found myself in front of that same Holy Door once more. The door was still closed, but this time I stood differently. Married with children, driving a minivan, my face now lined from laughter and worry — but my heart still burning for Christ. I posed for a picture with my husband, aware of the grace in the full-circle moment. The art on the door was just as it had always been — unchanged, like Christ himself: “ever ancient and ever new.” I fell in love with the beauty and poetry of God all over again on that trip.

Now, we are in the Jubilee Year of Hope. In the bull announcing the year, Spes non confundit (Hope Does Not Disappoint), Pope Francis said, “To hope is to live differently. To radiate hope is the Church’s greatest gift to humanity.” There are four Holy Doors in Rome, and all have been opened for pilgrims to walk through this year and receive grace. Each will be closed by January 6^th, 2026, the Jubilee Year ending with the closure of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s by our new pope, Pope Leo — another full-circle moment.

The Jubilee Year has ancient roots. Instituted in Leviticus chapter 25, it was to occur every fiftieth year. During this sacred time, land was to lie fallow, debts were forgiven and captives set free — a radical vision of social and economic reset. Separately, the people of Israel made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year for the great festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, passing through the city gates to offer sacrifice and thanksgiving. These thresholds marked moments of spiritual encounter and renewal.

In the thirteenth century, the popes began to adapt that sacred rhythm for the pilgrim Church. Pope Boniface VIII’s proclamation of the first Christian Jubilee in 1300 reimagined Levitical freedom in light of Christ’s Paschal Mystery: every twenty-five years, the faithful could receive a plenary indulgence by passing through a Holy Door — a powerful symbol of God’s mercy and forgiveness. This tradition has continued ever since, and this Jubilee Year will be the 27th in the Church’s history.

While each of the four Holy Doors possesses its own distinct beauty and character, our attention will be on the Porta Santa of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Cast in bronze by the Italian sculptor Floriano Bodini and first opened for the Great Jubilee of 2000, these doors bear witness not only to modern artistry but to the poetic beauty of our theology and the power of images to convey it. One can imagine what a significant honor it must have been for an artist to receive a commission from the Vatican. With its vast and established artistic heritage, it’s rare for a contemporary artist to be given the opportunity to contribute. The old Holy Door at St. John Lateran, the first one to be opened by a pope for a Jubilee year, was rather plain. As it was to be the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Christ that year, a new work of art for the door seemed fitting, and Bodini was the man to do it.  

At first glance, it’s clear that the work is modern. Whether or not it suits your taste, I encourage you to approach the image with openness. Bodini deliberately turned away from decorative classicism, embracing instead a dynamic, even anguished, expressionist style. While it may lack the polish of the art traditionally found in Roman churches, his sculpture pulses with emotional intensity — something you can sense with both your eyes and hands. It offers a bold, tactile theology of grace, judgment and the urgency of redemption.

Starting at the bottom of the sculpture with the papal insignia, we move up to see the Virgin Mary’s elegant feet resting on a pillow signifying her honored position. Her garment resembles a mountain, hewn by human hands, up which the Christ Child climbs. It carries the weight of generations — woven into Christ’s own lineage — waiting in hope for this long-anticipated ascent to the Cross. Though Jesus ascends with eagerness, he is gently halted by Mary’s loving left hand — her touch almost asking him to pause, so she might speak. With her right hand, she points upward, directing him toward his destiny: the crucifixion. The young Jesus reaches toward the scene of the Cross, just beyond his grasp. (Side note: the gold of Christ’s foot and Mary’s pinkie was not placed there by the artist, but it is the bronze polished to a shine by visitors touching it over the last twenty-five years.)

From above, the crucified Christ gazes down at the figures below — at his own humble beginnings and at his mother who remains faithfully in the heart of the mystery. Christ’s anguished hands are reminiscent of Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, but rather than reaching up to the heavens, they are facing down towards the viewer. His arms open wide to all who approach, perpetually welcoming them as the prodigal son’s father, reminding the viewer that Christ himself is the door (John 10:9), the one through whom all salvation passes. When pilgrims cross the threshold of the Holy Door at St. John Lateran during a Jubilee Year, they enter not only a sacred space but a sculpted narrative of salvation history. The door is both entry and encounter — a liminal space between our wounded humanity and the divine mercy.

Like the Hebrews of old and all of the pilgrims who have walked before us in Jubilee years, we are called to release grudges, forgive debts (which includes resentments) and set one another free that we might be bearers of hope and light and salt to the world. No door is truly closed with God by our side — he opens wide the gates of mercy to us.

As we walk through the remaining months of this Jubilee Year of Hope, let us pray to be granted the grace to step boldly through the doors that are set before us, so that we may emerge renewed in faith and charity and proclaim God’s saving work until the end of our days. Amen.