The Good Shepherd commented by BXVI

It is curious, but profound, the comparison that Christ makes of himself: a simple door. Why does Jesus compare himself to a door, even more, to an entrance door?
The door is always the passage from one place to another. Entering through a door means leaving one room and entering a totally different one. Passing through a door implies a movement, a change of vision. 

A door never forces you to enter or leave. The door is always there, waiting for you to open it, to enter or exit through it.
How wonderful it is to contemplate Christ as the door that will allow us to leave "our life" and enter another new, different life! Passing through Christ does not mean that all day long we have to be praying without stopping, or that we have to be thinking hour after hour about God. 

The Lord tells us so simply: "whoever enters through me will be saved, he will be able to go in and out and will find pasture". It is as if Christ wanted to express to us: Look, when you need my grace: here I am; when you are tired of your failures, of your difficulties: come to me; when your soul hungers for God: here is the best pasture which is Me - the Eucharist!


Christ is the door that makes us enter into true happiness, He never violates our freedom, because He wants us to choose Him by a conscious and free act of love. "To enter through the door, which is Christ, means to know Him and to love Him more and more, so that our will may be united to His will and our action may become one with His action (...)."

 

 (Benedict XVI, May 7, 2006).