{"id":2838,"date":"2023-04-30T05:48:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T05:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/?p=2838"},"modified":"2023-04-30T05:48:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T05:48:37","slug":"fourth-sunday-of-easter-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/?p=2838","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Sunday of Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

JOHN 10:1-10
\u2018I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture.<\/strong>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biblical scholars tell us that the shepherds of Jesus\u2019 day took the safety of the sheep so seriously that they would lie themselves across the entrance to the sheepfold at night. This would stop both the sheep escaping and any predators entering. The shepherd really did lay down his life for his sheep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the beginning of the pandemic being \u2018safe\u2019 has taken on new levels of meaning for us. So many ordinary things have had to be rethought. We have stood at the threshold of life and death. We had to accept that we couldn\u2019t go \u2018freely in and out\u2019. I certainly saw our monastic enclosure in a new light. We were and are fortunate to have just about everything we need inside the monastery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the quotation above it\u2019s the last few words which really strike me, \u2018be sure of finding pasture\u2019. The success of the shepherd depends on providing safety and finding pasture. Finding new grazing would often involve a degree of risk. The Israelites were originally a nomadic people and it was only entry into the Promised Land that began the process of them settling. I\u2019d always assumed that the settled people were the more prosperous, but in ancient Israel the fact that nomads could risk setting out on a journey indicated that they were more secure. They lived closely to nature and knew the movements of the seasons and the risks involved in the terrain that they crossed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our own lives finding the pasture that we need isn\u2019t always easy. Many times things can feel barren and as if we have journeyed to the thinnest of grass and the smallest source of water. Often it\u2019s only in looking back that we can see that we were sustained and have grown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where have you \u2018found pasture\u2019 in this past week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JOHN 10:1-10\u2018I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture.\u2019 Biblical scholars tell us that the shepherds of Jesus\u2019 day took the safety of the sheep so seriously that they would lie themselves across the entrance to the sheepfold … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Fourth Sunday of Easter”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monastic","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2841,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions\/2841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}