Friday, April 26, 2024

People of One Flock - the Rapport!

WORD 2day - Saturday, Fourth week in the Eastertide

April 27, 2024 - Acts 13: 44-52; John 14: 7-14

I am in the Father and the Father is in me - a powerful statement indeed by Jesus. Earlier in the same Gospel of St. John Jesus would have proclaimed: the Father and I are one! This is what set Jesus apart from the great prophets and the rabbi that they had; and made him so difficult for the Jews to understand. They were until then, unaware of a rapport so close with the Father. The utmost they could imagine was that of Moses: the Lord spoke to him face to face, as with a friend! Jesus takes that a step ahead and they were scandalised. 

There is nothing to be scandalised... Acts of the Apostles today presents to us another instance where the so-called traditional "chosen people" were scandalised - when God chose to reveal Godself to the so-called pagans! We must turn to the pagans, Paul and Barnabas proclaim boldly, because the Goodnews cannot be contained. It has to be announced, it has to be spread, it has to be shared, it has to be received, it has to be communicated... making everyone people of the One Flock, people who have heard the Goodnews and accepted it. 

God is love, God is relationship... God reaches out. That is why there has been revelation constantly. Through the ages God spoke to us through prophets and the leaders, and in the final times, God has spoken through God's only Son... the Word of God, Godself made human person, who lived among us and died for us, saving us for eternal life, making us people of the One Flock. We would therefore naturally be people who relate, who would reach out, who would go out to meet the other and bring everyone into that relationship of love and acceptance. Because, we have been made people, we have been made one people, we have been made people of the one flock, by that relationship, by that rapport that God has willed to share with us. 


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