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by Ottavio De Bertolis

This beautiful expression has a strictly biblical origin. You will all remember that, when Jacob, after having stolen the blessing from his brother Esau, flees from him, fearing his wrath, he arrives in a place, where he falls asleep, using a stone as a pillow; there he had his famous dream, in which he saw the sky open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on a ladder that rests from heaven in the very place where he was. Waking up, he says: «How terrible this place is. This is the very house of God, this is the door of heaven" (Gn 28, 17).

Jacob believed he was far from God, fleeing from Him for having deceitfully stolen the blessing that belonged to his firstborn Esau; instead, right where he is, with his thoughts that tire him and his remorse that are like a stone cushion on which he cannot find rest, right there God shows himself close to him. The place where he is, in the sense not of the physical place, but of the situation he was experiencing, precisely the one that seemed far from God, is instead close: God himself opens his door to him, and he sees a staircase that goes up to heaven, like a way that opens up for him and that allows him to rediscover peace and trust in God.

You therefore understand how, even more so, all this can be said for Jesus: He is the house of God because, as we have already seen, his body is the holy temple from which the Spirit of God flows, and it is also the tabernacle, who once accompanied Israel and today the Church on its journey; his flesh is imbued with divinity, and immensity flows from it for all those who quench their thirst at his breast. But even more wonderful is the door through which you enter this house; it is the wound in his side, opened by our sins. it is a purple door, opened by the spear of Longinus; through that door everyone can enter. That spear blow, which seemed to preclude grace, as a human expression of the rejection and hatred to which He submitted, becomes, through an infinite gift of God's wisdom, the key that opens divine mercy, becomes the very door through which we enter his Heart. One might say, with Saint Paul: «O depth of the riches, wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and inaccessible his ways" (Rm 11, 33).

Moreover, Jesus says of himself: «I am the door: if anyone enters through me, he will be saved: he will go in and out and find pasture» (Gv 10, 9). it is an always open door, opened by our own sins, by what unites us all, and that He welcomed, He who destroyed the law, sin and death in his body, to give us the freedom of the children of God, grace and life in abundance. We must take seriously what Jesus tells us through me: his flesh is the instrument of our salvation, with the gift of his body, He sanctifies our bodies, and makes them the temple of his Spirit, so that we ourselves we become, through Him, God's house, places where God lives.