Monday of the Fourth week of Easter
Commentary of the day
Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
45th Treatise on the Gospel of Saint John
“Whoever enters through me will be safe.”
“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 recognize 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.
-- Saint Vincent Ferrer