The gospel of John frequently refers to Jesus as light. The more generously any one of us responds to the Lords personal call to us, the more everyone else is supported in their efforts to respond to the Lords call to them. Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. We have gates to the front of the church, but they are rarely closed. The evangelist, John, suggests that Jesus needed to be alone with God the Father who had sent him into the world. The first reading tells one of the great stories that we find in the New Testament, the story of the conversion of Saint Paul. They were in the throes of deep grief. and has entrusted everything to him. These cookies may track your personal data. The spontaneous response to such mysterious new life is thanksgiving. MONDAY 26 TUESDAY 27 WEDNESDAY 28 THURSDAY 29 FRIDAY 30 SATURDAY 31. At the beginning of todays gospel reading, we find the disciples closed off in a room out of fear. When a parent dies in a family, for example, the siblings can be a great support to one another in the weeks and the months that follow. The reflections are ordered by day and the reflection is available by clicking the writer's name. The wind blows wherever it pleases; On these grounds is sentence pronounced: We need to pay attention, in some way, to the Lord. The Lords faithfulness encourages us to keep turning back to him, to keep coming to him, even after we have turned away from him. Daily Scripture, May 1, 2023. If Jesus is the gate that leads to abundant life, we have to pass through that gate. has eternal life, When Jesus says of himself, I am the gate, he is claiming to be the gateway to life for all of us. Those who might be up to no good prefer the cover of darkness. so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost He's in ALL OF IT. Pope Francis sees himself as a shepherd of his flock, his diocesan flock in Rome and the world-wide flock of the church. Jesus is the en-fleshed Word, God in human form. And their eyes were opened and they recognised him; but he had vanished from their sight. His sisters, too, are they not all here with us? Being a member of the community of those who believe in Jesus can be a source of bemusement to many, or even derision. These cookies are necessary to let our website work. As Peter puts it in todays second reading, You did not see him, yet you love him. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. We remember this morning these young girls who are soon to make their first Holy Communion. On one occasion, Jesus says of himself: I am the light of the world. Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. so am I sending you.. His frustration at being unable to speak clearly to the people gathered in St. Peters square was painfully obvious. As the good shepherd, for example, Jesus lays down his life for us. the usability. The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything to him. The Lord calls each of us to be a good shepherd in some shape or form. That is why we treasure the books of the gospels so much, because if Jesus bears witness to God, the gospels bear witness to Jesus. Jesus told his disciples this parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. The house I grew up in had a small garden to the front as well as railings and a gate. We seek to follow the Lord in the knowledge that he will stop at nothing to ensure that we remain members of his flock, people who belong to his new family, the community of believers we call the church. Nicodemus heard Jesus say to him that he needed to born of water and the Spirit. It was while Jesus was at prayer after his baptism that the Holy Spirit come down upon him. That beatitude embraces all of us gathered here this morning. Sometimes the wind will be at our back and will help us along as we walk. We can only surrender to the Spirit; we invite the Spirit to lead and guide us, to shape and mould us. No one can do that for us. In the words of todays psalm, we need to look towards the light so that we can be radiant. Yet, it is the language of Johns gospel. Babylon is often a code for Rome in the New Testament. It is the life of God and his Son and it is received here and now by those who believe in Gods Son. This mornings first reading is one of many wonderful stories in the Acts of the Apostles, the story of how an Ethiopian eunuch who served at the court of the queen of Ethiopia came to Christ. Then, in response to the Lords greeting, the sceptical Thomas made one of the greatest confessions of faith in all four gospels, My Lord and my God. He who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the flock; the gatekeeper lets, After hearing his doctrine, many of the followers of Jesus said, This is intolerable language. A sheepfold was an enclosed area with a gate alongside a house. We all have opportunities from time to time to create openings for people that allow the Lords work to be done. Through the practice of Lectio Divina, as individuals and as community, we leave space for God's Word to transform us so that we may begin to look upon our world as it were with the eyes of God and to love what we see with the heart of God. They declared to the other members of the church that as the leaders they should be devoting themselves to prayer and to the service of Gods word. Then one of them, called Cleopas, answered him, You must be the only person staying in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have been happening there these last few days. What things? he asked. Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Subscribe | Prayer| Titus Brandsma, Site designed, developed and hosted by Matthew Price: Transformation by Design. you hear its sound, Having told the story to each other, the two disciples told it to the stranger who joined them on the road. As such times, we need people like Barnabas who recognize that the Lord is behind this new direction and who encourage us to trust that the Lord is present in what is happening. Yet, the life that the Lord talks about there is not just a future reality, life beyond death; it is also a present reality. These cookies are necessary to let our website work. He wanted them to know that he was at peace with them, in spite of the fact that they had abandoned him in the hour of his passion and death. It is sent out monthly at the end of the previous month (for instance the Lectio Divina of Febrary will be emailed out by the end of January). But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. The thief comes Scepticism and deep faith can often be found in one and the same person. According to the Book of Genesis, God created Adam by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. Certainly, one purpose of a gate is to prevent access to some area. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see. And he said to them, Oh, how foolish you are! Todays gospel reading gives us an insight into the prayer of Jesus, I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth He understands of what we are made, why we do what we do and fail to do what we fail to do. Rather, the more Jesus increases in us, the more we become our true selves, our Christ selves, the person God is calling us to be. Our ultimate salvation is much more the Lords doing than ours. It is generally dated to around about the year 70. What are we looking to him for? Most of us like the light. He takes on the role to get something, and if what he has to give out weighs what he gets, he will walk away from the role; if, at some point, the role becomes too demanding, he will simply turn his back on it. We are being reminded that the life of the church and the quality of our own personal relationship with the Lord is not all down to us. In one of his letters he wrote, Christ Jesus took hold of me. In the early centuries the church seems to have found Matthews gospel in particular more helpful for the life of faith because of the large amount of the teaching of Jesus it contains, relative to Mark. In the gospel reading this morning, the people of Galilee set out to look for Jesus. Nicodemus said, How can a grown man be born? It was the time when the feast of Dedication was being celebrated in Jerusalem. It takes a certain amount of humility to make way for the gifts of others. Gods love revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus had triumphed over human wickedness. The evangelist is referring there not to daylight, but to the one who declares himself to be the light of the world. Here indeed is a light that darkness cannot overcome, a love that human sin cannot extinguish. The small amount of food that the boy had was not enough to feed the crowd in itself, and, yet, Jesus could not have fed the crowd without it. Jesus comes to his disciples as God in human form. She was deeply involved in what was happening in Europe and in the church in her time. That is why he calls out to us to pass through him, because he knows himself to be the gateway to all that we long for at the deepest core of our being. She set about serving her neighbours, distributing alms to the poor, ministering to the sick and to prisoners. As he increases in us and we decrease, we dont cease to be ourselves. Todays first reading makes reference to the persecution of the early church. Our relationship with the Lord is no different. He had earlier said to them, no one has greater love than to lay down ones life for ones friends. The Eucharist was very much at the heart of the life of Sister Gonzaga. We can sometimes find it difficult to believe in the ultimate triumph of life over death, of joy over sadness, when death and sadness remain very palpable realities for us. The story they told was a true story but it was not the whole story. The third stage is oratio (response) where we leave our thinking aside and simply let our hearts speak to God. This message of Marks gospel that the Lord continues to work with his disciples today, in spite of past serious failings, is one the church needs to hear today. We are not strangers to the Lord; he knows us deeply, better than we know ourselves. The Lord journeys with us at such times, as he walked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, whose spirits were certainly drooping. In the gospel reading this morning Jesus speaks of the shepherd who calls his own sheep one by one and leads them out. In a sense, Jesus is calling on them to get their priorities right, to put most energy into what is ultimately important. His own reasoning did not allow him to believe that life had triumphed over death, that the crucified Jesus was now the risen Lord. Paul went on to make an important contribution to the life of the church in Antioch, and the church there, in turn, was a great support to Paul in his future missionary work. because their deeds were evil. and the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Lukes first volume, his gospel. After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. The Lord may not be calling on us to take on some particular work but he may be calling on us to encourage someone else to take it on, as Barnabas encouraged Paul. Jesus came among us, full of Gods grace and truth, full of Gods gracious love and faithfulness, and we are invited to keep receiving from this fullness of God in Jesus. It had already grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. In that respect, he may be like many other disciples today. Please check your email now and click the confirmation link to confirm your request. Just as shepherd will not allow any of his flock to be stolen, because he is so protective of them, the Lord will not allow us to fall away from him, because he is so protective of us, as long as we want to remain a member of his flock and do not deliberately walk away from him. Yes, we have a role to play; we have to listen to his voice and endeavour to go where he leads. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. In this mornings gospel reading, Jesus sees crowds coming towards him. Every day we try to discern what we need to do to give expression to our desire to take Jesus as our gate. The Lords light is not in any way threatening. It was then that they saw Jesus coming towards them, speaking words of reassurance, It is I. Our presence at the Eucharist is one of the primary ways we come to the Lord in faith and open ourselves to his presence as the bread of life. (ii) Monday, Fourth Week of Easter (Year A). The evangelist is perhaps indicating to us that serious doubt and great faith can reside in one and the same person. Yet this mornings gospel assures us that the Lords hold on us is stronger than the forces which seek to remove us from him. Each of us has some responsibility for some little flock of our own, whether our situation on life. He will always ignore our locked doors and stand before us in his risen power. The Lords way of working is different to how the world works. So the other disciples said to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe., Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. He is the good shepherd who knows us through and through and who loves us so completely that he laid down his life for us. Telling the story helps us to come to terms with what has happened. Just as Jesus was always in communion with his Father so he wants us to be always in communion with him. It often brought them into conflict with the religious leaders who thought of themselves as the mediators of Gods word. We need to keep trying to go where the Spirit is leading us. No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. He was succeeded by Pope Urban VI who turned out to be a disastrous Pope. We also cannot control the strength of the wind. It is a day when we remind ourselves that we are called. We are more used to thinking of Jesus as the shepherd than the gate. Paul portrays such a Spirit-filled life when he says in his letter to the Galatians that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Our coming to Jesus is always in response to the Father drawing us to his Son. In todays gospel reading, Jesus speaks of the importance of eating his flesh and drinking his blood so as to draw life from him. The first reading describes a significant moment in the life of the early church, the preaching of the gospel to pagans for the first time, in the city of Antioch. He is the full revelation of God. Through his life, death, resurrection, he has befriended us and he calls out to us to entrust our lives to him as we would to a friend, including the pieces and fragments of our sometimes shattered lives. November 28th to December 4th, 2021 . Sheep went one way through the gate to reach the security of the sheepfold and they went the other way through the gate to reach pasture. and as it is in my power to lay it down, In his message for Vocations Sunday, Pope Francis says that our response to the Lords personal call to us always requires an exodus from oneself in order to centre ones life on Christ and on his gospel. Wherever we happen to find ourselves on our life journey, the Lord will always speak a word to us that leaves us more hopeful, more joyful, more assured that we are faithfully loved by God. Perhaps we can never know what exactly happened on that day, but the gospel reading is suggesting that the Lord can work powerfully through what are apparently very insignificant resources, a small boy and his few loaves and fish. Life is never the same for a couple after the birth of their child. Rather, his teaching is liberating and life-enhancing. Any passage of Scripture can be used for this way of prayer but the passage should not be too long. As I, who am sent by the living Father, In response, Jesus challenges them to work, not for food that cannot last, but for food that endures to eternal life. A rule of life was given to the early Carmelites by St Albert Avogadro, Patriach of Jerusalem between the years 1206 - 1214. If the Lord is the good shepherd in those two ways, we are called to be good disciples of the Lord in the same two ways. and learn from it, The closer we come to him, the more we realize how deeper our relationship with him could be. Here and now they already share in the life of God which Jesus brings us. He highlighted in his gospel the failure of the disciples. abandons the sheep and runs away In the language of Johns gospel, we are to remain in him, as he remains in us. When they arrived at their home town of Emmaus, the disciples invited the stranger to stay with them. We understand the Sacrament of Confirmation as the moment when we confirm our baptism. In that sense, each of us is called to be a shepherd to others. But the one who comes from heaven is above all. Unless very clear conditions were met, Thomas defiantly declares, I refuse to believe. He who comes from heaven That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. Do not be afraid. Our calling is to allow the Lords vision and purpose for our lives to become more of a reality. One of the tasks of life is to try and listen to the particular call that the Lord is addressing to me here and now. The Easter proclamation cannot be imprisoned, just as the guards at the tomb of Easter could not prevent Jesus bursting forth into new life. He immediately goes on to say, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Whenever we strive to be faithful to the Lords ways, whenever we seek to witness to him, we can always be assured of the Lords confirming presence. That is why the reading ends with the declaration that all who believe in Jesus have eternal life, the life of God. The Father and I are one.. (iii) Monday, Fourth Week of Easter (Year A), In the gospel reading Jesus draws a striking contrast between the good shepherd and the hired man. Life has triumphed over death!, and our own present experience. On this second Sunday of Easter, we are invited to make Thomas confession of faith our own, wherever we happen to find ourselves on our faith journey. In this mornings gospel reading, the risen Lord keeps faith with them, sending them out to proclaim the gospel to the whole world. But, as I have told you, The photograph of the Pope with a lamb draped across his shoulders went around the world in seconds. NEW: Catholic Daily Reflections Series Two, Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, The Sorrowful Heart of Our Blessed Mother. The speech of Gamaliel in todays first reading is thought-provoking. When those who look for Jesus eventually find him, they often discover that they get more than they had bargained for.
