{"id":25814,"date":"2020-05-06T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T06:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/?p=25814"},"modified":"2020-05-03T11:44:19","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T10:44:19","slug":"wednesday-reflection-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wednesday-reflection-4\/","title":{"rendered":"WEDNESDAY REFLECTION"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday of the 4th <\/sup>Week in Easter-tide.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did you read the Gospel on Sunday? Good Shepherd Sunday, we call it.\u00a0 If you did, you may have noticed that Jesus, twice within seven verses says, \u201cI tell you most solemnly\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The Revised Standard Version translates it as, \u201cTruly, truly\u2026\u201d and Monsignor Knox as, \u201cBelieve me\u2026\u201d and other versions as, \u201cAmen, amen I say to you.\u201d\u00a0 Twice in seven verses?\u00a0 In fact, I read recently that in St. John\u2019s Gospel, Jesus speaks this phrase fifty times!\u00a0 It must, therefore, be very important.\u00a0 In fact, that\u2019s the point.\u00a0 What Jesus is about to say is of enormous importance.\u00a0 Jesus uses this device to indicate how crucial is the teaching He is about to give.\u00a0Last year when I was taking the place of the priest in Eriskay in the Western Islands, there was a flock of sheep in the field right beside the parish house.\u00a0 Whenever the shepherd approached in his car, the sheep would run to the point where he would enter the field and they would gather around him.\u00a0 I rather fancifully thought it would be nice to have a photograph of myself with the sheep around me but whenever I approached, they would scatter!\u00a0 I might not have had the smell of the sheep about me but I consoled myself with the thought that they were not the sheep of my concern.<\/p>\n

St John focuses upon the imagery of sheep and their shepherd.\u00a0 Jesus calls himself a gate.\u00a0 He is the gate or the door of the sheep-hold.\u00a0 What a seemingly strange thing to say.\u00a0 But you see, when the sheep see the gate, they see only a barrier.\u00a0 When we see it, we see a way in.\u00a0 So he says, \u201cTruly, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>We are to be members of His flock. There is a rather splendid photograph of the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in the middle of a pasture in Jerusalem, holding a new-born lamb in his arms.\u00a0 The impression is that he was caught unawares. But the man who took the photograph happened to be the renowned photographer, Yousuf Karsh the Armenian-Canadian portrait photographer famous for his portraits of notable individuals.\u00a0 Maybe not so unawares, after all!\u00a0 I\u2019m sure that being among the flock the Archbishop would have noticed that they are, indeed, rather smelly creatures.\u00a0 But a good shepherd knows them all one by one and he leads them to safety.\u00a0 Our Good Shepherd, knows each of us one by one, each of us by our name, and in spite of the \u201csmelliness\u201d of our sinful ways, He lays down His life for us.<\/p>\n

Let us Pray:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heavenly God, receive our thanksgiving for our school pupils and teachers as they grow in confidence adapting to a new way of being together during this pandemic.<\/p>\n

For you alone are holy and good, the source of peace and life.<\/p>\n

Through Christ our Lord.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monsignor Monaghan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday of the 4th Week in Easter-tide. Did you read the Gospel on Sunday? Good Shepherd Sunday, we call it.\u00a0 If you did, you may have noticed that Jesus, twice within seven<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2931,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25816,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25814\/revisions\/25816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/er\/StNinians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}