In today’s First Reading Paul, bidding farewell to the presbyters of Ephesus, charges them with watching over the Lord’s flock and themselves. Our Lord in today’s Gospel prays that his disciples share a profound unity, a unity reflecting the profound unity of the Most Holy Trinity. \u00a0Paul encourages the presbyters to remember that it is better to give than to receive; the “wolves” who will menace the flock are looking after their own interests, not the poor sheep who falls into their clutches.<\/p>\n
However, as Paul warns, the unity of the Church is threatened by internal factors as well; some teaching perverse doctrines will lure people away. It is due to both these types of threats that Our Lord entrusted the apostles and their successors with\u00a0watching over the unity of the flock. \u00a0They are expected to preside over the Church in a spirit of service and of charity. The wounds and obstacles to Christian unity even today are caused by false teachers and people pursuing\u00a0their own interests at the expense of the Church’s.<\/p>\n
Let’s pray today for shepherds who know how to drive off the wolves and false teachers. Let’s also pray for reconciliation and unity among all Christians so that we can be one as Our Lord has prayed for in today’s Gospel.<\/p>\n
Readings:\u00a0Acts 20:28\u201338;\u00a0Psalm 68:29\u201330, 33\u201336b;\u00a0John 17:11b\u201319.<\/em> See also 7th Week of Easter, Wednesday<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a07th Week of Easter, Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In today’s First Reading Paul, bidding farewell to the presbyters of Ephesus, charges them with watching over the Lord’s flock and themselves. Our Lord in today’s Gospel prays that his disciples share a profound unity, a unity reflecting the profound unity of the Most Holy Trinity. \u00a0Paul encourages the presbyters to remember that it is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,41,12],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-easter","tag-seventh-week","tag-wednesday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-le","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}