When Heaven Opens a Door Quickly, Why Do We Close It Slowly?

The Waiting Room

They tell him to wait.

Six months.

Nine months.

A year.

RCIA classes.

Forms.

Interviews.

Sponsors.

Sessions.

Handbooks.

PowerPoints.

Calendars.

And the man stands there blinking.

Because yesterday he was drunk.

Yesterday he was broken.

Yesterday he wandered into the church because the sign outside said:

“Come in.

Rest awhile.”

So he came in.

He sat in the back.

Said nothing.

Looked at the Cross.

Cried quietly when nobody was looking.

And for the first time in thirty years,

something inside him moved.

Not emotion.

Not performance.

Not manipulation.

Movement.

The ancient word is metanoia.

Turning.

Return.

The soul remembering its direction.

And now heaven itself is leaning toward him.

But the Church says:

“Wonderful.

Please come back next Thursday at 6:30 PM for Session One.”

Session One

Session One.

As if the thief on the Cross attended twelve weeks of instruction.

As if the Ethiopian eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles said:

“Actually Philip, before we proceed, perhaps we should establish a diocesan onboarding structure.”

No.

The man said:

“Here is water.

What prevents me from being baptized?”

That question terrifies modern Christianity.

What prevents me?

Policy prevents you.

Scheduling prevents you.

Administrative pacing prevents you.

Risk management prevents you.

Institutional anxiety prevents you.

And perhaps wisdom requires some caution.

Yes.

The early Church catechized converts too.

Yes.

Faith must have roots.

Yes.

People should understand what they are entering into.

But there is another danger nobody speaks about.

Cooling What God Has Set on Fire

The danger of cooling what God has set on fire.

The danger of institutionalizing urgency out of the Gospel.

Imagine a man rescued from drowning.

And instead of pulling him fully into the boat,

we hand him a brochure:

“Introduction to Maritime Rescue:

A Twelve-Part Series.”

The man is still choking.

And sometimes I wonder if modern Christianity still believes in conversion at all.

Not gradual moral improvement.

Not religious onboarding.

Not ecclesiastical assimilation.

Conversion.

The kind that interrupts history.

The kind that blinds Saul on the road to Damascus.

The kind that makes fishermen abandon nets.

The kind that causes tax collectors to leave tables mid-shift.

The kind where Heaven moves first and bureaucracy struggles to keep up.

Protecting the Sacred

And here is the tension:

The Church is trying to protect the sacred.

I understand that.

Sacraments are not toys.

Priesthood is not improvisation.

Truth matters.

Doctrine matters.

Formation matters.

But somewhere along the line,

the waiting rooms became longer than the road to salvation itself.

A man can enter church burning with repentance…

and leave with a folder.

Come back next month.

Join the inquiry phase.

Then discernment.

Then candidacy.

Then preparation.

Then scrutiny.

Then interviews.

And meanwhile the fire flickers.

Not because God changed His mind.

But because institutional time and spiritual time are not always the same thing.

The Speed of the Early Church

The apostles baptized entire households in a day.

Three thousand souls in one sermon.

Now we require parking validation.

And perhaps this is unfair.

Perhaps the Church fears false conversions.

Perhaps priests are overwhelmed.

Perhaps modernity has made sincerity harder to recognize.

But I cannot escape the feeling that the early Christians expected God to move suddenly.

We expect Him to book an appointment.

The Question

And maybe that is my real question:

When heaven opens a door quickly…

why are we so determined to close it slowly?