Monday, November 11 : John Tauler

«I am the door of the sheep»: our Lord says he is the door of the sheepfold. Now what is this sheepfold, the pen into which Christ is the door? It is the Father’s heart, into which and of which Christ, who has unsealed and opened for us the heart hitherto closed to humankind, is indeed our most lovable door. All the saints are gathered inside this fold. The shepherd is the eternal Word; the door, the humanity of Christ; by the sheep in this house we understand human souls. But angels, too, belong to the sheepfold…; the Holy Spirit is the doorkeeper… because all truth understood and expressed comes from him… O with what love and goodness he opens the door of the Father’s heart to us and grants us access unceasingly to the hidden treasure, the inmost dwelling places and all the wealth of this house! No one could imagine or comprehend how welcoming God is, always ready to receive, yes, longing and thirsting to do so, and how he precedes us at every moment and each hour… O my children, how obstinately deaf we remain to this loving invitation…: so often we refuse him our acceptance of this invitation. How many of the Holy Spirit’s summons and appeals are repulsed; we refuse them on the grounds of all kinds of things here below. So often we want something else and not the place God where wants us.

maronite readings – rosary,team