Monday in the Fourth Week of Easter, April 22, 2024

John 10, 1-10

Jesus said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them.  So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” 

The Lord Jesus is speaking after he has healed the man blind from birth, the account of which is found in John 9.  A crowd has gathered, Pharisees have challenged him, he has rebuked them, and they have left.  Remaining are the people who have come to see the man who was healed and to hear more of what has happened.  Among these are many who recognize Jesus, and many of his followers.

With the withdrawal of the Pharisees, the Lord tells the crowd, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber.”  As he very often does, the Lord opens his teaching with a well-known example of daily living.  Those who witnesses his rebuke of the Pharisees might have supposed that he was referring to them with “thieves and robbers”.  The Pharisees were not universally loved by the Jews and not a few in the crowd would have been inclined to agree with this interpretation.  “But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.”  Here the Lord indicates that the primary thrust of his discourse would not be aimed at the Pharisees but at the identity of the shepherd and the sheep.  “The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”  The Lord develops his theme carefully, again using examples of life familiar to the people.  We might compare what he does here with how Socrates is shown to prepare an argument in one of Plato’s Dialogues.  

“When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice.  But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”  The Lord seems much less direct in his teaching here than he was when he revealed to the crowd in Capernaum that he was the Bread of Life, possibly because he was then speaking to people who had actually seen and benefited from his miraculous feeding of the five thousand and who had sought to make him king afterwards.  Here, few, if any, of his hearers had witnessed the healing of my the man born blind and whose understanding of him needed not to be corrected but developed.

“Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them.”  What St. John means is that Jesus was speaking of himself as the true Shepherd: when we speak of humans who watch over sheep we are the ones who use a figure of speech in our use of “shepherd”.  Human “shepherds” resemble the true Shepherd in certain ways but they are only shepherds in a derivative sense.  In other words, Jesus is not like a shepherd, he is The Shepherd.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.”  That is, The Gate, which earthly gates resemble to one degree or another.  “All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.”  That is, these false shepherds did not pass through him but went over the fence.  He did not send them or sanction them.  Because of this, the “sheep” did not listen to them.  Here it became clearer to his hearers that he was speaking of the people of Israel as the sheep and the “thieves and robbers” as not only the Pharisees but also the false prophets and leaders of rebellions who claimed to be the Messiah who came before him.  The people might also have had the sneaking suspicion that he was speaking of the chief priests who had gained their positions through bribery.  “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”  The Lord emphasizes that he is The Gate.  There are no other gates.  He is also more than can be perceived with the eye: he is The Gate, appointed by Almighty God.  “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”  The first part of the verse would have been common-sense, but the second part would have startled everyone in the crowd.  

The Lord says that he “came” — into the world — as though of his own accord, which no human does, and that he came with a purpose: “that they [the sheep] might have life and have it more abundantly.”  He came into the world, then, to give a greatly abundant life to the people of Israel.  He connects this statement to that of his being The Gate, as though life would be given “through” him by the shepherds he would send to the sheep and the grace which he would bestow on the sheep through them.

We rejoice in Jesus Christ who protects and cares for us so carefully!

The thirteenth article in our continuing series on the Holy Mass: The Eucharistic Prayers

We will look at each of the four Eucharistic Prayers in some detail in succeeding articles.  Here we will look at what the Eucharistic Prayer is and a little of its history.  

First of all, what we today call the Eucharistic Prayer was called “the Canon” from the early days of the Church until the 1970 Missal when four “Eucharistic Prayers” were introduced.  The word “canon” comes from a Greek word meaning “rule” or “measure”, and was the unchanging prayer at the core of the Mass.  all the prayers and longings of the Church are contained here, and her highest praise to God.  The Eucharistic Prayer contains, in its heart, the changing of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Son of Son, who took on flesh for us, and the offering of his Body and Blood to the Father.  After the prayer is concluded, the priest consummates the Sacrifice by consuming the Lord’s Body and Blood.  In the first and second centuries in Rome, the Mass was offered in the Greek language, the universal language of its time known by both slaves and senators.  It is likely, suggested by a comment made by St. Justin, that the prayer itself was not written down and that each priest prayed as well as he could.  By the early 200’s, however, the liturgical language in Rome became Latin and at this time the prayer was either written down or drawn from memory.  Due to the persecutions and the Mass burnings of Christian books, the latter may have been most common.  The first sacramentaries show a stable, consistent prayer, and by the seventh century it was fixed, with no further alterations or additions.  During this time the most marked additions were the inclusion of the names of certain saints, whose intercession was invoked.  

The prayer itself begins immediately following the Sanctus, and concludes with the Amen that follows the doxology (“Through him, with him, etc.”).  For nearly two thousand years this prayer was said quietly by the priest With no vocal part for the people, who were encouraged to pray in their own way.  In the earliest centuries this most sacred prayer was prayed by the priest behind a veil or an iconostasis, as continues to be the case with the Orthodox.  

The reform of the Mass, ordered by the Second Vatican Council, resulted in four Eucharistic Prayers, presumably for the sake of variety although no reason for this was given.The first three of these may be used at any Mass while the fourth can only be used on non-feast days because of its construction.  The first of these prayers is based on the ancient Canon, and we will look at it next.