ROME (CNS) — Opening the Holy Door of the oldest Marian shrine in the Western world, Cardinal Rolando Makrickas prayed that the world would entrust itself to Mary, “the door to heaven.”
“Let us offer our prayer to the Father so that, like Mary, we may be pilgrims of hope who bring Christ into the world,” said the cardinal, coadjutor archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, before pushing open its bronze door Jan. 1.
As the bells rang out from the summit of Rome’s Esquiline hill, Cardinal Makrickas became the first pilgrim to cross the door’s threshold during the Holy Year 2025.
Among the pealing bells was one originally placed in the basilica’s bell tower — the highest point in the center of Rome — which was used to announce the Catholic Church’s first Jubilee in 1300 and had been housed in the Vatican Museums since 1884; it was returned to St. Mary Major last year ahead of the Jubilee.
Celebrating Mass on the feast of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, Cardinal Makrickas reflected on the mystery of Jesus’ incarnation in Mary’s womb, calling it the “fullness of time” as it united earthly time with eternity.
Today, the cardinal said, humanity often seeks to “perfect time” by saving or enriching it through technology, but “every effort results in its loss.”
“One cannot, however, ever feel lost, wasted or tired from time spent with God,” he said. “It will not be ideas or technology that give us comfort or hope, but the face of the Mother of God.”
Cardinal Makrickas also spoke about the significance of the relics of Jesus’ crib housed in the basilica, “the first, humble, poor home of Jesus,” from which humanity began to mark time itself.
Each pilgrim entering the basilica during the Jubilee and praying before the icon of the Marian icon “Salus Populi Romani” (“health of the Roman people”) — which Pope Francis visits before and after each of his international trips — and the Holy Crib “will not be able to leave here without a deep and particular feeling, a feeling and certainty that the heavenly Mother is with him,” the cardinal said.
“Each person will go from here with the assurance of being accompanied by the grace, the protection, the care and motherly tenderness of Mary,” he said.
St. Mary Major is especially significant to Pope Francis. He has said that he often visited the basilica when traveling to Rome as a cardinal and, breaking with recent tradition, has said he will be buried there rather than in the Vatican after his death. Six popes are buried in the basilica, and the last pope interred there was Pope Clement IX in 1669.
