The Doors of St. Austin’s

Well, imagine for a moment that you walked down the Drag on your way to Mass, and when you came to St. Austin’s, you found swinging glass doors that opened when you stepped on an electronic mat, doors like 
H-E-B or the ice cream parlor, the copy shop, or the bookstore.

That wouldn’t work at all. The doors to St. Austin’s are the way they are – enormous, heavy, made of wood and metal – because they have to fulfill three functions. They serve to create a strong sense of threshold by demanding that you open them with purpose, with an act of will, and some muscle besides. The holy water fonts beside the doors extend this sense of threshold; they recall our baptism.

Secondly, the doors serve to hide and protect what goes on inside the sanctuary. The interior of the church can be called the “nave” of the church, derived from “navis,” Latin for ship. And because our church does look like a big ship, it reminds me of Noah’s ark.

Thirdly, the doors remind us of sacrifice, that profane space was sacrificed to make a sacred space, and that natural materials were chosen for this space which will unite earth and heaven.

A reflective gaze at the church doors brings to mind the doors of the tabernacle, and how we have to wait until the right time for those doors to open. With our human will, we can enter the church to be with God; but He finally approaches us, not through our doing, but through His own gracious coming, through the door that He opens.

By Susan Kerr in St. Austin’s “The Spirit,” June 1988