One Minute Reflection – 26 April – Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter, Readings: First: Acts 11: 1-18, Psalm: Psalms 42: 2-3; 43: 3-4, Gospel: John 10: 1-10 and the Memorial of Our Lady of Good Counsel / Our Lady of Genazzano (1467)
“I am the door. Whoever enters through me will be saved….” – John 10:9
REFLECTION – “My solemn word is this: “I am the sheepgate.” Jesus just opened the gate that He had shown us to be closed. He Himself is that gate. Let us recognise Him, let us enter and rejoice to have entered.
“All who came before me were thieves and marauders.” We must understand: “Those who came outside of me.” The prophets came before He arrived; were they thieves and marauders? Not at all, for they did not come outside of Christ; they were with Him. He had sent them as messengers before Him and He held in His hands the heart of these people whom He had sent… He said: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (Jn 14:6) If He is the truth, those who were in the truth, were with Him. Those who, on the contrary, came outside of Him, are thieves and marauders, for they came only to plunder and kill. Jesus said: “The sheep did not heed them.”…
But the righteous believed that He would come, just as we believe, that He has already come. Times have changed, faith is the same… One single faith unites those who believed that He would come and those, who believe that He has come. We all see Him at different times coming in by the same gate of faith, that is to say, through Christ… Yes, all who believed in the past, at the time of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, or of Moses or the other patriarchs and prophets, who all announced Christ, were already His sheep. They heard Christ Himself through them – they did not hear a strange voice but His own.” – St Augustine (354-430) Bishop of Hippo, Father & Doctor of Grace of the Church – 45th Treatise on the Gospel of Saint John
PRAYER – Almighty God and Father, You have rescued Your faithful from enslavement to sin, by Your Son’s self-abasement. You have raised up the world through His suffering. Fill us now with holy joy at His rising and triumph. Let us hear His voice and follow Him to everlasting life. Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us! Through Christ our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, God now and forever, amen.
Acts 11: 1-18
1 And the apostles and brethren, who were in Judea, heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
2 And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him,
3 Saying: Why didst thou go in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them?
4 But Peter began and declared to them the matter in order, saying:
5 I was in the City of Joppe praying and I saw, in an ecstasy of mind, a vision, a certain vessel descending, as it were, a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners and it came even unto me.
6 Into which looking, I considered and saw fourfooted creatures of the earth and beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air:
7 And I heard also a voice saying to me: Arise, Peter – kill and eat.
8 And I said: Not so, Lord = for nothing common or unclean hath ever entered into my mouth.
9 And the voice answered again from heaven: What God hath made clean, do not thou call common.
10 And this was done three times and all were taken up again into heaven.
11 And behold, immediately there were three men come to the house wherein I was, sent to me from Caesarea.
12 And the Spirit said to me, that I should go with them, nothing doubting. And these six brethren went with me also: and we entered into the man’s house.
13 And he told us how he had seen an angel in his house, standing and saying to him: Send to Joppe and call hither Simon, who is surnamed Peter,
14 Who shall speak to thee words, whereby thou shalt be saved and all thy house.
15 And when I had begun to speak, the Holy Ghost fell upon them, as upon us also in the beginning.
16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how that he said:
John indeed baptised with water but you shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost.
17 If then God gave them the same grace, as to us also, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, that could withstand God?
18 Having heard these things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying – God then hath also, to the Gentiles, given repentance unto life.
Gospel: John 10: 1-10
1 Amen, amen I say to you:
He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold but climbs up another way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But he that enters in, by the door, is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 To him the porter opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
4 And when he has let out his own sheep, he goes before them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
5 But a stranger they follow not but fly from him because they know not the voice of strangers. This proverb Jesus spoke to them. But they understood not what he spoke to them.
7 Jesus therefore said to them again: Amen, amen I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
8 All others, as many as have come, are thieves and robbers and the sheep heard them not.
9 I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved and he shall go in and go out and shall find pastures.
10 The thief comes not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy.
I am come, that they may have life and may have it, more abundantly.
AnaStpaul 