The Archdiocese of Buenos Aires Website has a treasure of some 100 homilies and messages of Archbishop Bergoglio (which Google chrome can easily help you translate). What a treasure of episcopal heart and perception! Here is one example, a message to his priests from his first year as archbishop.
The message to the priests is simple: shed the bureaucratic strictures that keep you closed to others and thereby to God!...His joy and peace! Open up! Do not be afraid to open up!
Buenos Aires, 1 October 1999
Feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus
Dear Brothers
Within a few weeks the Advent season will begin: this year it will mark the liturgical beginning toward the Jubilee. The desire to let us be visited by the Lord at His coming acquires a singular force in the light of this event. At Christmas the Holy Door will be opened and, foreseeing this gesture the oft-repeated invitation of the Pope resonates in my heart: "Open the doors to the Redeemer" (Aperite portas, No. 1), "Open the door to Christ" (Redemptoris Missio , nn. 3, 39). Thus the Nativity of the Lord needs to find us, "like men waiting for their Master to come ... to open instantly to Him" (Lc.13: 36). This letter that I write to you is born of the desire to exhort you, as a pastor and brother, to open the doors to the Lord: the door of the heart, the doors of the mind, the doors of our Churches ... all doors. Opening doors is a Christian task, a priestly task.
So Jesus did, we read it in the Gospel. At the beginning of his mission, he presents himself "opening the book of the prophet Isaiah ..." (Luke 4: 17), and so also the book of Revelation ends as the Lamb slain, as the Lion of Judah, "the only one worthy to open the book and break its seals "(Apoc.5: 2.9). The risen Jesus is the one who "opens the intelligence" of the disciples of Emmaus "to understand the Scriptures" (Lc.24: 45) and makes them remember: "Did not our heart burn when he opened the Scriptures to us?" (Lc.24: 32). For this opening of the Word there are many miracles: "Jesus touched the eyes of the two blind men and their eyes were opened" (Mt.9: 30); "He said to the deaf mute 'Ephphatha', meaning open yourself, and his ears opened"(Mc.7: 34). When Jesus opens his mouth it is the Kingdom of Heaven opening in parables: "And opening his mouth, Jesus taught them" (Mt 5: 2), "I will open my mouth in parables" (Mt.13 : 35). When Jesus humbles himself and is baptized, and puts himself in prayer (LC.3: 21) the sky opens and the voice of the loving Father is heard: "This is my beloved Son" (Matt.3: 16). And it is the same Lord who exhorts us: "Call and it will be opened" (Lc.11: 9), and the Church prays "that God may open a door to his word" (Col.4: 3), because " if he opens no one can close"(Rev. 3: 7). The clear and definitive invitation that brings together in an entirely personal way all of the gestures of opening of the Lord is that of the letter to Laodicea: "If anyone opens the door to me, I will come into his house and supp with him and he with me" (Rev. 3 : 20).
These days openness is considered a value, although it is not always understood properly. "He's an open priest" people say, opposing it to "a closed priest". As with any assessment, it depends on who makes it. Sometimes, on a superficial assessment, openness can mean "one that allows anything to happen" or "that he is open range", not "starched", "rigid". But behind some rather superficial positions there is something latent in the background that people perceive. Being open means a priest "who is able to listen while standing firm in his convictions." Once a man of a village described a priest with a simple sentence: "He is a priest who talks to everyone." He meant that he does not make distinctions of persons. He was struck by the fact that he could speak "well" with each person, clearly distinguishing him both from those who only speak well with some, and those who speak with everyone saying yes to everything.
This needs to be so because openness goes together with fidelity. And it is proper to fidelity that one and the same movement, on the one hand, opens the door of the heart entirely to the beloved; and, one the other hand, closes the door to anything that threatens that love. Hence, opening the door to the Lord implies opening it to those whom He loves: to the poor, to the young, the wayward, the sinners ... Anyone, really. And close it to the "idols": to the easy compliment, to worldly glory, to lusts, to power, to wealth, to defamation and to those people--to the degree that they embody these disvalues--who want to enter into our heart or onto our communities to impose them.
Besides being faithful, the attitude of opening or closing the door has to be testimonial. To testify that, on the last day, there will be a door that opens to some: the blessed of the Father, who gave food and drink to the little ones, those who maintained their lamp oil, which practiced the Word ... and closes to others: those who did not open the door of their heart to the needy, those who remained without oil, those who only said "Lord, Lord" with words and did not love with works.
Thus, the opening is not a matter of talk but of gestures. People express it speaking of the priest who "always is around" and of the one who "is never around" (putting it charitably they say "I know you're busy Father because you have so many things ..."). Evangelical openness is played out in the places of entrance: at the door of the churches which, in a world where the shoppings never close, they cannot remain closed for many hours, even if you have to pay for security and go down more often to the confessional; at that door which is the phone, tiresome and inopportune in our hyper-communicated world, but which cannot remain long hours at the mercy of the voice mail box. But these are rather external doors and "intermediary". They are an expression of that other door that is our face, that are our eyes, our smile, a swifter step and zeal to go greet someone whom we know is waiting ... In the confessional one knows that half the battle is won or lost in the greeting, in the manner to receive the penitent, especially when giving a peek with an expression as if to say "can I?". A frank, cordial, warm welcome finishes opening a soul which the Lord already made look through the peephole. In contrast, a cold reception, rushed or bureaucratic, closes the ajar (door). We know that we confess differently according to the priest ... and the people do too.
A nice picture to examine our openness is our home. There are houses that are open because "they are at peace", they are hospitable because they have the warmth of a home; not so ordered that one is afraid even to sit (not to mention to smoke or eat something) nor so disordered that they make others cringe. The same happens with the heart: the heart that has room for the Lord has also space for others. If there is no time or place for the Lord then the place for others is reduced to the extent of ones nerves, of one's own enthusiasm or one's own weariness. And the Lord is like the poor: he comes without us calling him, insisting a bit, but not for long, if we do not keep him. It's easy to get rid of him. It's enough just to rush the step a bit, as with beggars, or to look the other way as when the kids leave our holy cards on the subway.
Yes, openness to others goes hand in hand with our openness to the Lord. He is the one with the open heart, the only one who can open a space of peace in our hearts, the peace that makes us hospitable to others. That is the job of the risen Jesus: to enter the closed Upper Room, which, as a house, is an image of the heart, and opening it by removing all fear and filling the disciples with peace. At Pentecost the Spirit seals the house and the hearts of the Apostles with this peace and converts them into an open House for others: Church. The Church is like the open house of the merciful Father. Therefore, our attitude should be that of the Father and not that of the sons of the parable: neither of the younger who takes advantage of the opening to make his getaway, nor of the elder who thinks that with his closedness he protects the inheritance better than their own father.
Open the doors to the Lord! This is the request I would like to make today to all the priests of the Archdiocese. Open your doors! Those of your heart and of your Churches. Do not be afraid! Open them in the morning in your prayer, to receive the Spirit who will fill you with peace and joy and to then shepherd the faithful people of God. Open them during the day so that the prodigal sons feel awaited. Open them at nightfall, so that the Lord not pass you by and leave you in your solitude but rather enter in and eat with you and keep you company.
And always remember her who is the Door of Heaven [Ianua Coeli]: the one with the heart opened by the sword, who understands all sorrows; the little slave of the Father who knows how to open herself entirely to praise; the one who "promptly" gets out of herself to visit and comfort; the one who knows how to transform any den into a house of "God with us" with some poor nappies and a mountain of tenderness; who is always attentive that the wine shall not be lacking in our lives; the one who waits outside to make way for the Lord to instruct his people; the one who is always in the open wherever men raise a cross and crucify her children. Our Lady is Mother, and-as mother-knows how to open the hearts of her children: every hidden sin can be forgiven by God through her good eyes; every whim and closedness disappears at a word from her; all fear for the mission dissipates if she joins us on the way.
I ask her to bless us all, priests of this Archdiocese, and that , with motherly tenderness, she teach us every day to open the doors to the Redeemer.
With fraternal affection.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ
