Doorways

As children of a mother obsessed with having a clean house, we were encouraged to take off our shoes whenever we entered our house. While it was inconvenient for us, it did keep the floors clean and it kept Mom happy, but there was a deeper meaning. The simple ritual of taking off our shoes at the doorway made that threshold a place of transition between the outside and the inside, between the public and the private, between the formal and the familiar. Taking off the protective cover for our feet also marked the doorway as a point of vulnerability.

Doorways and the actions that precede and follow them symbolize thresholds of change. The first time we enter the doorway of our college dormitory or whenever we go through the door of the delivery room to have a child or when we walk under the airplane doorway to fly to a job interview, we discover that doorways are more than what meets the eye. Doorways mark transitions in our lives.

In a similar way, the Church uses doorways to mark transitions in our spiritual lives. The Rite of Acceptance into the Order of Catechumens in which the catechumens are signed with the cross takes place outside the doors of the church. When they enter the sanctuary, this marks the transition of one who was an outsider to one who is now part of the household of faith. The beginning of the Rite of Baptism for Children also happens at the entrance of the church where the child is named and signed with the cross on the forehead. They then process into the church as a sign that the child is welcomed into the family of God.

In the first form of the Introductory Rites for the Order of Celebrating Matrimony the ministers are to greet the bridal party at the church entrance and lead them in a procession to the altar. Crossing the threshold at this point in one’s life marks the transition from being a solitary individual to being united with another in married love.

In the Order of Christian Funerals, the body or the cremains are sprinkled with holy water at the doorway before being brought into the sanctuary to signify the passage from death to new life.

The Rite of Dedication of a Church begins at the entrance of the church building, marking the doorway as the place of transition between the global community and the community of believers.

These rituals which are performed at the doorway of a church convey a new beginning in the lives of the faithful. The doorways become pivotal thresholds that mark rites of passage of those who transition from outsider to insider, from one state in life to another, from death to new life.

Moving through such doorways takes courage. These thresholds are places of vulnerability and uncertainty. When we go through these doorways, the only thing we know for certain is that life as we know it will never be the same.

The beauty of celebrating these rites of passage in the context of a community of believers is the assurance that we don’t proceed alone. In the Rite of Acceptance, the godparents and the community walk with the catechumens. In the Rite of Baptism for Children, the parents and godparents accompany the child. In the Order of Celebrating Matrimony, the ministers and the bridal party escort the couple. In the Order of Christian Funerals, the family accompanies the body or the cremated remains to the altar, and in the Rite of Dedication of a Church the entire community enters together. The community represents God who journeys with us through every threshold.

May we, assured of God’s presence at every doorway, have the faith to go wherever God calls us.