Crossing the Threshold?  Opening doors?  What does that have to do with New Evangelization?  

We of the Church have intense experience of hiding behind closed doors.

"On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"(Jn 20:19-22)

Jesus himself is a door. 

Again after Our Lord's ascension, the apostles huddled behind closed doors in the same upper room awaiting the coming, the advent of the Holy Spirit. There they prepared in prayer and fasting with the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Mary, the Mother of God. The doors of were yet closed as they huddle behind closed doors.

When the Holy Spirit came with the sound of a mighty wind, tongues of fire appeared over the apostles and Our Lady. The doors of their hearts were opened wide. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. Now they were ready to manifest their love for Our Lord out of doors, in public.

Today, the Church has once again been in prayer with the Mother of God, behind closed doors. Now we are in the time of the New Advent, a new coming of the Holy Spirit as we await the coming of the Great Jubilee.

With the Second Vatican Council, the Holy Spirit began in earnest to prepare for the Great Jubilee, the Great Jubilee to celebrate 2000 years of God among us. Now, as we approach the new millennium, our Holy Father exhorts us:

Peoples everywhere, open the doors to Christ! ...open yourselves to the definitive Word of God, to the One in whom God has made himself fully known and has shown us the path to himself.

...God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for the sowing of the Gospel. I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church's energies to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes. No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples.

Open the doors to Christ! In the name of respect for human rights, in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity, in the name of solidarity among mankind and in the name of love, I cry out: Do not be afraid! Open the doors to Christ! Without Christ it is impossible to understand man.

The Holy Door of the Jubilee of the Year 2000 should be symbolically wider than those of the previous Jubilees because humanity upon reaching this goal, will leave behind not just a century but a millennium. It is fitting that the Church should make this passage with a clear awareness of what has happened to her during the last ten centuries. She cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without encouraging her children to purify themselves, through repentance of past errors and instances of infidelity, inconsistency and slowness to act.

Come sweet Holy Spirit Spirit of the Lord, you come to us behind closed doors. You fire us and fill us with your Love. We cry out Abba, Father. We praise you and glorify your Holy Name. Woe to us if we do not preach your Holy Name.

We throw wide the doors. We run from our upper room. We preach your gospel. The new springtime, the new evangelization is here.

It is the time of our going out to meet the Lord. It is the time of Our Lord coming in to us. Awake, Oh Sleeper.