APPRECIATION OF THE HEAVENLY PASTURE

SATURDAY, Fourth Week of Eastertide

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke,OP

Acts 13:44-52; Ps 98:1-4; Jn 14:7-14

Theme: Appreciation of the Heavenly Pasture

God the Father is not known but through the Son who reveals him to us. It is through the meaning communicated by the word we come to know the Person. In the same way, the Father is seen only through the Son, for he is the image of the unseen God and the true reflection of his divinity. But these considerations are in the abstract. The Father reveals himself concretely as we meditate on his word and contemplate his goodness in our lives. Every perfect gift comes from the Father. Since the gift of the Good Shepherd is the most sublime, it reveals the goodness of the Father most. The gift of the Holy Spirit is another sublime gift we have received from the Father, though mediated by the Son. This makes the daily interaction with the divine presence of the Risen Lord, through prayerful meditation on the word and adoration of his presence in the Eucharist and everywhere, advance us in the knowledge of the Father. “If you know me, you know my Father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him.” The good Shepherd represents the heavenly Father in a way suitable to our nature and our present needs. 

We see this in the Lord’s saying that whoever goes in through him will find a heavenly pasture. The will of the Father for us is the best thing for us. The Father’s will is what the Son offers us daily as he comes to us. We heard him say that the bread of heaven is he who comes down from heaven to do the will of the Father. The Father’s will is our daily bread, and that is Jesus our Shepherd. The Father’s will is the reality of the Eucharist. What comes to us each day is the divine will. But how we receive it is entirely a different thing. The Father gives us the Holy Spirit as the Fountain of heavenly water to eat our daily bread. The Spirit helps us to discern the heavenly bread by helping us understand and distinguish the truth from falsehood. He reveals what belongs to Jesus Christ to us while guiding us away from what is evil and harmful. Everything that the Father gives to us is healthy. It is necessary to take it with a good disposition, for a wrong spirit makes us reject what is good as poisonous and harmful.  

Not to listen to the Holy Spirit is to listen to a contrary spirit. A contrary spirit makes us reject the gift of the Father to us. We read of the working of these contrary spirits in the first reading. “When they saw the crowds, the Jews, prompted by jealousy, used blasphemies and contradicted everything Paul said. Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly. ‘We had to proclaim the word of God to you first, but since you have rejected it since you do not think yourselves worthy of eternal life, we must turn to the pagans.” They were given bread from heaven, but a jealous spirit prevented them from taking and digesting it with the Holy Spirit. They settled for unhealthy bread taken with unclean spirit that destroys the soul. We must learn to walk with the Holy Spirit daily and eat our daily bread from heaven. The exercise of prayer and meditation on the word of God is necessary to keep away from the poisonous bread of hell. We must prayerfully discern the spirit that is prompting our actions and inactions. Our appreciation of the presence of the Good Shepherd with us increases daily as we eat of his presence. 

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the renewal of your Holy Spirit that we made eat of the heavenly bread daily by his guidance and come to the knowledge of you our heavenly Father.  

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