Porte Santa — The Holy Doors

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” — Matthew 7:13

Faith is a strange thing. An invisible current, tugging people toward something they couldn’t see, couldn’t prove, yet clung to with unwavering certainty. Some found comfort in it. Others, like me, found it incomprehensible—a construct built on nothing but hope and fear. A way to explain the unexplainable. A reason to kneel when the world felt too heavy to stand.

I never thought much about it. Religion, faith, belief… they were like relics from another time, things people inherited rather than chose. I grew up watching others pray before meals, cross themselves in front of churches, whisper quiet words into clasped hands. It never meant anything to me. Not really.

I understood rituals. I understood tradition. But faith? That was different. Faith was personal. Faith required conviction, a certainty I had never felt.

I was an observer, nothing more. Detached. Uninterested.

That was, until Rome. Until the doors.

Rome was just another vacation spot, another box to tick off. I was there with my two best friends, Jules and Annie, exploring cobblestone streets, stuffing ourselves with pasta, and pretending to appreciate the architecture like cultured adults. It was the kind of trip we’d been dreaming about for years—late-night wine-fueled conversations about one day coming here finally made real.

Jules was the reason we were there, really. She had the money, the connections, the kind of effortless charm that made things happen. She could bat her lashes at a hotel receptionist and get us an upgrade, could talk her way into reservations at restaurants booked months in advance. Rome was just another city on her long list of places to experience before she got bored and moved on to the next. Annie and I were happy to be along for the ride.

Our itinerary was loose—food, shopping, sightseeing. We wandered through open-air markets, trying on overpriced sunglasses we had no intention of buying. We took pictures in front of every fountain we found, hands on our hips, sunglasses pushed up into our hair. We got lost on winding backstreets and laughed about it, because how could getting lost in Rome ever be a bad thing?

A quick visit to a church or two was inevitable. Jules, being the only one among us with any real belief, insisted we stop by at least a few of the famous ones. Annie and I weren’t particularly interested, but when in Rome, right?

Besides, churches were cool in a historical kind of way. Massive, old, dripping with significance. They didn’t feel like places of faith to me—they felt like monuments. Beautiful, imposing, and completely separate from anything personal. I had no way of knowing what was waiting for me inside.

It was inside St. John Lateran that I made my first mistake.

I didn’t realize it at the time, of course. How could I? It wasn’t as if there had been a warning, a whispered voice in my head telling me to stop. No eerie shift in the air, no dramatic flickering of the lights. Just a door. An ordinary, unremarkable door.

Porta Santa.

The words meant nothing to me. I barely even registered them as I passed, the gold lettering blending into the grand opulence of the basilica around me. If anything, the phrase made me think of Santa Claus. Some kind of festive decoration, maybe? A Christmas display left up too long? I smirked at the thought, amused at my own stupidity. Yeah, because that makes sense. A Santa door. In a 1,700-year-old church. 

The second my foot hit the marble on the other side, my head pulsed with a sudden, sharp ache.

“Ow—shit.” I winced, pressing my fingers to my temple. The sharp, pulsing ache wasn’t fading like a normal headache. If anything, it felt deeper, like it had settled behind my eyes, buzzing faintly.

Jules turned to me, her expression mildly amused, mildly concerned—the same look she gave me whenever I tripped over my own feet or made a bad decision at a bar. Effortlessly gorgeous and effortlessly devout, she always had this quiet grace about her, like nothing ever truly rattled her. Even now, in the middle of an ancient basilica, with golden light streaming through stained glass and illuminating her perfect cheekbones, she looked more like she belonged here than any of us.

She arched a perfect eyebrow. “You okay?”

I rubbed my forehead, trying to shake the feeling. “I think the holy air is rejecting me.”

Annie snorted, loud enough that a few people nearby glanced our way. “Damn, maybe you should repent or something before you burst into flames.”

A soft cough behind me. I turned, expecting to see a priest or maybe some disapproving old woman clutching her rosary. Instead, it was a man. Late fifties, maybe early sixties. His face was lined, but not just with age—there was something else there. A weight. He had the kind of eyes that looked like they had seen too much, dark and deeply set, his expression caught somewhere between concern and something… heavier.

“You walked through the Holy Door.”, he said. His voice was quiet, but it carried, sinking into the vaulted ceilings above us like it belonged there.

I blinked. “The what?”

He nodded toward the archway behind me. I followed his gaze. Porta Santa. The man’s eyes lingered on me, serious. “These doors are only opened during Jubilee Years. Those who pass through all four of them receive a plenary indulgence. A full remission of sins.”

I forced a laugh, pressing my fingers to my temple. “That would explain why it felt like something was trying to dig its way into my skull.”

He didn’t laugh.

Instead, he looked at me like I had done something wrong. A strange feeling crawled up my spine. I glanced back at the door. Just a door—ordinary in function, extraordinary in form. Nothing more than carved bronze and history. And yet… Something in the man’s tone stuck with me.

We decided to seek out the other doors, turning it into our own little Holy Door tour—just for the experience, for the sake of saying we had. Jules liked the idea because it felt sacred, like a pilgrimage wrapped in spontaneity. Annie liked it because it felt ironic, a sightseeing checklist with the bonus of spiritual redemption. I didn’t know why I agreed. Maybe because, ever since walking through that first door, something felt… off. Like I had to do it now.

Back at the hotel, we did some research, partly out of genuine curiosity.

The Holy Doors were only opened during Jubilee Years, which happened once every twenty-five years—unless the Pope declared an extraordinary Jubilee. And wouldn’t you know it? The next ordinary Jubilee was happening this year.

Four doors. Four thresholds leading to… what, exactly?

“It’s kind of a cool coincidence.”, Jules mused, scrolling through an article on her phone. “I mean, how often do you just stumble into something like this?”

“It’s weird.”, I said, because that was the only word I could think of. Weird that I hadn’t known what I was walking into. Weird that this was happening now, while we were here.

“Maybe it’s fate.”, Jules teased, nudging my shoulder.

Annie grinned. “Or maybe the Vatican’s trying to lure in unsuspecting tourists to boost their indulgence sales.”

I huffed a laugh, but it felt hollow.

I didn’t believe in fate. I didn’t believe in anything. But as I stared at the list of doors glowing on Jules’ screen, a quiet unease settled into my bones.

Because it didn’t feel like a mere coincidence.

At St. Mary Major, Annie dipped her fingers into the holy water and smeared a wet cross on my forehead, laughing. “There. You’re baptized now. Maybe that’ll stop you from getting headaches.”

I rolled my eyes with a smirk and turned away, stepping further into the basilica. The air was cool, carrying the scent of old stone and incense, the faint murmur of prayers echoing beneath the vaulted ceilings. Jules and Annie had already wandered off, their voices fading into the low hum of the crowd.

I let my fingers skim the back of a pew as I walked, my footsteps muted against the polished marble floor. There was something oddly heavy about the space, a quiet kind of pressure that settled against my skin. I tried to shake it off, chalking it up to the sheer weight of history pressing down on this place.

A soft whisper of movement brushed against me from behind. It was light, like the gentle rustling of fabric, or the faintest touch of fingers gliding through my hair. I turned, expecting to see either Annie or Jules standing there, a mischievous grin or a quizzical look on their faces—because that was the kind of thing they’d do. A playful swipe of the hair, a light touch on the arm, and then they’d dart away, pretending nothing had happened. It was their way of making me laugh, or making me look silly.

But there was no one there.

The church was quiet, the kind of quiet that didn’t just mean a lack of noise but something deeper, something woven into the very walls. Even the tourists that lingered in the distance seemed to move carefully, their footsteps softened, their voices hushed as if the air itself demanded reverence.

Jules and Annie had already wandered ahead, their silhouettes barely visible between towering columns and flickering candlelight.

I stood there for a moment, fingers tightening at my sides. My scalp still prickled where I had felt the touch—so light, so deliberate. A draft, maybe. Or just my imagination.

I turned back toward the altar, forcing my legs to move, pushing the feeling away.

I didn’t mention it. Not because I wasn’t unsettled—because I was. Because acknowledging it felt like inviting it in. Whatever ‘it’ was.

At St. Paul, a sudden dizziness hit me like a wave. It was that strange, disorienting feeling—the ground seemed to tilt beneath my feet, as though the world itself was shifting just out of reach. I grabbed onto the golden railing, my fingers tight around it, steadying myself. But the sensation didn’t let up; it lingered, pressing against my chest, making it harder to breathe. Jules and Annie noticed, but before they could ask if I was okay, I shook my head, signaling that I was fine.

We didn’t stay much longer. The sun was sinking lower, casting long shadows across the floor, and I could feel the atmosphere in the basilica shift. The hum of whispered prayers faded, the sense of sacred stillness slowly giving way to the inevitable ending of the day. The basilica was closing soon, and we had to leave. Still, I couldn’t shake the strange, lingering dizziness, or the unsettling feeling that had settled deep in my bones.

Back at the hotel, exhaustion slammed into me like a freight train. I collapsed onto the bed, more like a ragdoll than a person—limbs sprawled out, face first into the mattress. If bricks could be tired, I felt like one. A tense, overworked brick. With sore feet.

It happened just as sleep was about to take me—when my mind drifted in that delicate space between waking and dreaming.

A scream. A woman’s scream. Sharp, shrill, and impossibly close—right in my left ear.

I jolted upright, gasping, my chest tight and my heart pounding so hard it drowned out everything else. My breath came in ragged bursts as my eyes darted around the room, searching—expecting to find someone, something.

But there was nothing.

The room was still, shrouded in darkness, perfectly normal. No signs of movement. No intruder. No explanation. Just the reverberating echo of that scream, ringing in my ears.

I didn’t sleep after that. Didn’t even try. Not after hearing that.

I just lay there, stiff as a corpse, staring at the ceiling while my mind replayed the scream over and over, dissecting it, trying to make sense of it. But there was no sense to be found. No logic, no explanation—just the lingering, skin-crawling certainty that it had been a sound too sharp, too real to be imagined.

I wanted to tell myself that it was just a trick of my exhausted brain, the kind of auditory hallucination that happened sometimes in that half-dreaming state.

But I didn’t believe that.

Because I had felt it. The breath of it against my skin. The way my whole body had reacted before my mind had even caught up, before I’d had time to rationalize it.

I swallowed hard, glancing at Jules and Annie. Their slow, steady breathing filled the room, oblivious. Safe.

I envied them.

I considered waking one of them up. Just to say hey, something’s weird, to hear them laugh it off and tell me I was being paranoid. Maybe that would make it less real—just a silly, exhausted overreaction, nothing more.

But I didn’t move.

Because there was a part of me, a quiet, creeping part, that feared this wasn’t just in my head.

The next morning, I insisted we go to St. Peter’s. It was the last one on our list. The fourth and final Holy Door. My friends exchanged glances but didn’t argue. I played it off as curiosity. Architecture, history. Whatever excuse made sense.

Jules found a route on Google Maps. A bus would get us there in about forty minutes, but the streets were beautiful, and the morning air was crisp. “If we walk, we’ll be there in an hour.”, she said, looking up. “Up for it?”

I nodded, maybe a little too quickly. I didn’t want to be stuck in a packed, confined bus with this weird buzzing in my head, this restless feeling I couldn’t shake. Walking felt… right. Grounding, even.

We grabbed our bags and set out, weaving through the morning crowds. Rome was already alive, street vendors setting up, the scent of fresh bread and espresso spilling into the air. I should’ve been enjoying it. Should’ve been soaking in the sights, the atmosphere.

Instead, I kept glancing over my shoulder. Nothing was there. Nothing ever was. And yet, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Eventually, we reached the final door. The biggest. The grandest. The most important one.

St. Peter’s Basilica towered over the square, a masterpiece of stone and faith. It was the kind of place that made you feel insignificant—not in a cruel way, but in the way that standing beneath a vast night sky did. Like you were a speck in something ancient, something far bigger than yourself.

The square teemed with tourists, cameras flashing, voices echoing against the colonnades. We moved through the crowd, past the looming statues of saints and apostles that lined the rooftops like silent sentinels.

The line to enter was long, stretching across St. Peter’s Square, but it moved quickly. The air buzzed with the chatter of tourists, the occasional murmur of a prayer, the rustle of guidebooks and pamphlets.

Then, finally, we were at the entrance. 

The Holy Door.

It wasn’t tucked away inside like the others—it was the entrance, massive and imposing, its bronze surface gleaming in the late-morning light. I had walked through three already. This should have felt like nothing. Just another doorway, just another step.

So why did my stomach twist like this?

Jules was the first to cross, stepping through with a quiet, reverent expression. Annie followed, making a dramatic show of wiggling her fingers like she expected to be struck by lightning.

I hesitated. For a second, I felt watched. Not by the crowd. Not by security. Something else.

One step.

Then another.

As I crossed the threshold, I was met with a wave of wonder. The interior of St. Peter’s Basilica stretched out before me like a dream—soaring ceilings, golden light spilling through stained glass, and sculptures that seemed to come alive with every glance. 

I exhaled, forcing myself to shake it off. When I looked up, the sheer scale of the basilica took my breath away.

The ceilings stretched impossibly high, an ocean of gold and marble. Light spilled in through stained glass, catching on mosaics that had watched over this place for centuries. Michelangelo’s dome soared above us, a masterpiece of devotion carved into stone.

I swallowed hard. Nothing had happened. Not really. But in that moment, the sheer beauty of it all had left me breathless.

We moved deeper into the basilica, swallowed by its immensity. The sheer scale of it was overwhelming—not just in size, but in presence. Every surface was gilded, every statue carved with a devotion so intense it felt almost intrusive to witness.

Somewhere in the distance, the low murmur of a service echoed through the vast space. Voices rising and falling in a rhythmic flow, a language I didn’t understand but still felt in my bones. Latin, maybe? No—Italian.

We followed the sound, drawn in like moths.

At the front of the basilica, near the high altar, a choir was singing. Their voices soared, high and ethereal, reverberating off marble and gold. It wasn’t just music. It was something that sank beneath my skin, that hummed in my chest.

An old man stood near the pulpit, speaking in slow, measured tones. His voice was deep, edged with reverence, and though I didn’t understand the words, I recognized a name when I heard it.

Petrus. Peter.

I glanced at Jules, who was listening intently, lips slightly parted. Annie, standing beside her, had a half-amused look on her face, but even she wasn’t cracking jokes now.

The man continued, gesturing as he spoke, and I caught fragments of meaning.

Simon Peter. A fisherman. A disciple. The one chosen to carry on Christ’s church. The one who denied him. The one who, in the end, was crucified upside down because he refused to die in the same manner as his savior—believing himself unworthy.

I swallowed, shifting my weight. I’d never really understood the story. Not fully. Maybe I never would.

Growing up, I’d heard bits and pieces of it, like I had with so many others. But even as a kid, I’d always thought the story was… strange. The idea of a man willing to die in such a brutal way for something he believed in, for a power he couldn’t see, it just didn’t make sense to me. Peter, the man who denied his savior, then later chose to suffer a humiliating death upside down? It was hard to wrap my head around it. I used to think, like so many others, that it was some odd kind of… self-punishment. A way of humbling oneself beneath something far greater.

I didn’t know why anyone would want to submit to something so… so unknowable, when you could be living for yourself? It always seemed like a strange kind of devotion, something that had never quite fit into the way I saw the world.

But standing here, in this place of grandeur and history, I felt that same odd reverence hanging in the air. I still didn’t understand it—maybe I never would—but there was something about it, something unspoken, that made me wonder if maybe there was more to it than I could see.

The choir swelled, voices blending into something vast and aching. I rubbed my arms. I wasn’t cold, but—I shivered anyway.

I closed my eyes for a second, not in prayer, but in a quiet attempt to absorb the weight of the place, of the voices floating around me. I couldn’t deny the beauty. The kind of beauty that you can feel in your chest, that leaves you with a sense of awe even if you can’t fully understand why. It wasn’t just the artistry or the history; it was something intangible that made everything here—every stone, every brushstroke, every note of the choir—feel sacred.

Still, I wasn’t a believer. That part of me, the part that questioned and doubted, remained untouched, like a stone at the bottom of the ocean, sinking in the depths of the basilica’s quiet reverence. But, for the first time in my life, I understood the pull of faith. The need to believe.

I exhaled slowly and took another step forward. The altar was stunning, bathed in light from the high windows, and around it, statues of saints stood watch, their gazes solemn and unyielding. Everything about the space was built to inspire, to make you feel small, to make you think that maybe there really was something greater than all of us.

As I continued to walk, my gaze shifted downward, toward a small table near one of the pillars. A simple wooden box sat there, surrounded by a few pamphlets and prayer cards. On the front of the box was a sign that read Libro delle intenzioni di preghiera—Prayer Intention Book.

I hesitated for a moment, then walked over. The book was leather-bound, the pages slightly yellowed with age. I opened it slowly, unsure of what I was looking for, but something inside me urged me to flip through its pages. It wasn’t just a place for prayers, but a catalog of hopes, fears, and desires from every soul that had passed through this place.

Some were brief, a name, a request. Others were long, written with the careful hand of someone pouring their heart into the words. There was a petition for healing, a plea for strength, a thank-you for the blessings received. It was simple. Human. The same kind of requests you’d find in any place of worship, any gathering of people hoping for something greater than themselves.

I lingered on a few of them, tracing the words with my finger as if trying to understand them better.

“For my mother, who is slipping away. May she find peace before she forgets us completely.”

“Please, God, show me a way to forgive myself. I’ve done things I can’t take back. I don’t know if I deserve mercy, but I need to know if I can still be loved.”

“For my son, lost to the streets. May he find his way back to me, and may he know that my heart still beats for him, no matter the distance.”

“For strength, not for myself, but for the person I love more than my own life. Help them find the courage to believe they’re worthy of happiness.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, swallowing the lump in my throat. How often do we forget to ask for others in our own quiet moments of need? We get so wrapped up in our own struggles, in the chaos of our lives, that we forget to look beyond ourselves. We forget to reach out, to offer up prayers for the people who are just as lost or broken as we are.

I shut the book quietly, my chest tight. These weren’t just prayers. They were pieces of broken souls, stitched together with hope, with faith, with the kind of longing that makes you feel smaller, but also more connected to the world around you. And somehow, I understood. It wasn’t about believing the same things or even praying to the same God. It was about recognizing the depth of what it means to be human.

I stood there for a long while, the weight of the words heavy in my hands, before I slowly turned and walked away. 

Maybe I wouldn’t ever believe the way some people did. Maybe I wouldn’t ever find the answers I was seeking here. But in that moment, beneath the vaulted ceiling of St. Peter’s Basilica, I felt the weight of the human experience in a way I hadn’t before. It wasn’t about faith for me—not yet, at least—but it was about connection. The shared need for something, anything, to hold on to. And for the first time, I understood why people came here—why they sought solace in places like this.

I wasn’t a believer. I never had been. But standing there, surrounded by centuries of faith, by prayers whispered into stone walls and carried by candlelight, I felt something.

Not belief. Not quite. But… something.

I took a deep breath as my feet carried me slowly through the basilica, past the towering statues and mosaics that seemed to watch over me. The choir’s voices still echoed in the air, a soft hum beneath the vastness of the space. There was a peace here, a quiet that felt both heavy and comforting. It wasn’t the kind of peace that settled over your heart like a warm blanket. It was the kind that made you sit with your thoughts, your questions, your uncertainties.

I didn’t have to have the answers. Not right now, anyway. Not today.

I stopped for a moment to admire the intricate carvings on the marble columns, the figures frozen in time. Each one seemed to tell a story—of sacrifice, of love, of devotion. They were all part of a larger narrative that I could never fully understand, but standing there, in the midst of it all, I felt less alone. There were stories written in the stones, in the prayers, in the silent spaces between the words.

Maybe that’s what it was. Not belief in the traditional sense, but a kind of knowing. That we’re all searching for something—answers, peace, connection, whatever it may be—and that search, in itself, binds us together.

Jules and Annie had wandered off, lost in their own thoughts, likely discussing the beauty of the church, its history, or maybe just enjoying the quiet. But I stood there for a while longer, taking it all in. The grand architecture, the voices still rising in the distance, the scent of incense hanging in the air. It was overwhelming, but in the best way possible.

I didn’t know what would come of this trip. I didn’t know if I’d ever come to fully understand the depth of what I’d felt in St. Peter’s, or if it would ever change how I saw the world.

As I walked toward the exit, I couldn’t help but think about all the things that belief wasn’t just about the divine. It was about something much simpler, much more human. It was about connection—the desire to see a world that could be better, where love and kindness were the things we reached for when everything else felt empty. This place, this sacred space, wasn’t just a monument to religion. It was a monument to the power of hope. The way it spread, the way it filled the cracks in your soul when nothing else could.

It wasn’t the grand gestures, the rituals, or even the miracles that mattered. It was the quiet moments of reflection, the shared whispers of prayer, the recognition that we all need something to hold onto in the dark. And in that sense, I understood why people came here. Why they sought out something bigger than themselves.

It wasn’t for the forgiveness of sins, not for salvation or some greater cosmic purpose. It was for something simpler, something that didn’t need to be explained—something that lived in the air, in the silence, in the shared humanity of it all.

As I stepped through the great bronze door once more, I felt something stir within me—a recognition, a shift in perspective. It wasn’t about believing or not believing. It was about acknowledging the power of something that could give people the strength to endure, to hope, to keep moving forward despite everything.

And in that moment, I made a quiet promise to myself. I would never mock something that gave people peace. I would never belittle the search for something higher, no matter how intangible it seemed. Because even if I didn’t fully understand it, I saw the good it did. I saw the way it brought people together, and how in a world that so often felt broken, that was something worth respecting.

The voices of the choir still lingered in my mind, soft and comforting. They weren’t just singing to the heavens. They were singing to each other, to everyone who’d ever felt lost, and to the simple hope that maybe, one day, we could all find our way.

I still didn’t know what to make of the headache, the disorientation, the uneasy feeling that someone—something—had been watching me. Maybe it was the grandeur of it all, the weight of centuries pressing down on me. Or maybe, it was just the mind playing tricks. The exhaustion from the trip, the crowds, the overwhelming history. Just the way the mind reacts to being surrounded by something so immense, so… transcendent. 

But as I stepped out into the sunlight, the air heavy with the sound of distant prayers, I realized that I had come here for more than just a passing visit. I had come to see something I’d never been able to see before—not faith, not belief, but the simple, quiet beauty of the human spirit. And that, I thought, was worth every step.

Whether I was really free of all my sins now, I couldn’t say. The dizziness had faded, and the feeling of being watched, of something lingering just beyond my awareness, had slipped away with the setting sun.

But for now, I didn’t need to know. I didn’t need answers. Sometimes, it was enough just to stand there and let it all wash over you, to take in the beauty of the moment without trying to analyze it to pieces.

And maybe, if you’re reading this, you’ve had your own experiences. Maybe you’ve walked into a place and felt something shift inside you—a connection that didn’t need words, just a quiet recognition that we’re all part of something, even if we don’t always understand it.

If you, too, want to feel that, to experience what I did, maybe it’s time to step through your own threshold. Find that place where you can feel both small and immense at the same time, where the weight of the world can rest on your shoulders, and yet, you feel oddly lighter for it.

Because, in the end, it isn’t about faith, or religion, or miracles. It’s about connection. And if you want to find that—if you want to understand, even for a fleeting moment—maybe, like me, you just have to be open to the possibility that it’s not the grand gestures, the rituals, or the theology, but rather the quiet moments—the ones you can’t always explain—that hold the most meaning. 

And if you’re willing to step through those doors, whether they’re made of gold or stone, you might just find that something worth holding on to.

After all, that’s what we’re all searching for, isn’t it?