04/24/2026
Where are our "I am the gate" icons?
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JOKE-OGRAPHY:
This Bible story occurs just after Jesus heals the man born blind (John 9). If you'll recall, Jesus healed the man on the sabbath, and while the Pharisees bickered about what this might mean, the healed man recognized Jesus was the Lord and worshiped Him. After this miracle, Jesus teaches the public, and some Pharisees are among them, listening and taking offense to His words. Now, in John 10, Jesus uses a metaphor, saying that those who enter a sheepfold (a safe enclosure for a flock of sheep to spend the night) by climbing the wall are thieves and robbers, and the sheep do not recognize their voices, but the true shepherd of the sheep comes through the sheepfold's gate, and his sheep recognize him and come in and out to pasture and thrive. Jesus identifies Himself both as the gate and the "good shepherd." By extension, we see that the healed man -- who recognized Him as Lord -- is one of His flock.
In this cartoon, we focus on Jesus's line about being the gate. Reading this passage is a priest, Fr. Mark, practicing for his homily. He concludes that Jesus identifying Himself as a gate is why we call worship of Him "a-DOOR-ation." Now, "adoration" can be used as a synonym for "worship," and a gate is a kind of door, so Fr. Mark says "a-DOOR-ation" to fuse the two concepts together like some kind of chimeric abomination. His fellow priest, Fr. Books, wonders if he ought to do the homily instead, to spare their flock of this awful wordplay.
