On this Tuesday of the fourth week of Easter, the liturgy carries us further along the same thread we began yesterday. The voice of the Good Shepherd is still the centre of everything; but today we see how this voice quietly produces something new in history. In Antioch, far from Jerusalem, the disciples are called “Christians” for the first time. A name is born — not chosen by them, but given to them, because they had begun to look like the One they were following.
It was the feast of the Dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was walking in the Temple, under the colonnade of Solomon. The Jews gathered around him; they were saying: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them: “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness to me. But you do not believe, because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life; they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” (Jn 10, 22-30)
In the first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles (Ac 11, 19-26), we find a community of believers scattered by the persecution that followed the death of Stephen. They reach Phoenicia, Cyprus, and finally Antioch. At first they speak only to fellow Jews. But then some of them, originally from Cyprus and Cyrene, begin to address “even the Greek-speaking pagans,” announcing to them that Jesus is Lord. “The hand of the Lord was with them: a great number of people became believers and turned to the Lord.”
News of this surprising fruitfulness reaches Jerusalem, and the Church sends Barnabas — a man “full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” — to verify what is happening. Barnabas does not arrive as a controller. He arrives as a discerning brother. “When he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced.” And his joy is itself a form of confirmation: he recognises that the Spirit is the true protagonist of the mission, and his role is to encourage the new community to remain steadfast. Then, with admirable simplicity, he goes off to Tarsus to look for Saul, and brings him to Antioch. Together they teach for an entire year. And it is in Antioch — not in Jerusalem, not in Rome — that, for the first time, the disciples are called “Christians.”
This name is not a self-designation. The believers do not invent it. The surrounding world looks at them, sees something distinctive, and gives them a word for it: “those belonging to Christ.” When a community begins to be recognised by the One who lives in it, a name is born almost on its own. Mission is, in this sense, the visibility of an interior reality — the Lord at work in lives that have allowed themselves to be transformed.
The Gospel according to Saint John (Jn 10, 22-30) reveals where this transformation begins. Jesus is in the Temple, walking under the colonnade of Solomon, when the people press him to speak openly. “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” His answer is striking: “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness to me. But you do not believe, because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
The criterion is not intellectual cleverness, nor religious pedigree, nor closeness to the Temple. It is a delicate inner attentiveness — the ability to hear the Shepherd’s voice and to recognise it as one’s own. “I give them eternal life; they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
The two readings are like the inside and the outside of a single mystery. Inside: hearts begin to recognise the voice of Jesus and to follow it. Outside: the world begins to see something different in those hearts and gives them a new name. Antioch becomes the place where this happens visibly for the first time, but the dynamic is the same in every century: where the voice is heard, where the Father and the Son are received as one, a Christian appears — and the world, sooner or later, notices.
In the spirituality of the Child of Bethlehem, this passage from voice to name is profoundly tender. The Lord does not impose his name on us; he gives himself to us first, and then little by little we begin to bear his name with truth. Bethlehem teaches the same lesson in another key: God comes small, hidden, silent, and yet his presence reshapes everyone who welcomes him. Mary and Joseph are not called “Christ-bearers” because they decided to be; they became so by living in the closeness of his life. So it is with us. The name “Christian” is not a label we wear; it is the gentle imprint of a presence we have allowed to dwell in us.
Today, then, the question is twofold. Are we still listening — really listening — for the voice of the Shepherd in the ordinary noise of our days? And does the way we live, work, love, and forgive begin, ever so quietly, to make those around us suspect that someone Else lives in us? Antioch reminds us that the name follows the listening; the visibility follows the union; the mission follows the heart.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, you who walked under the colonnade of Solomon and now walk among us in the simplicity of every day, teach us to recognise your voice amidst all the noises of our hearts. Give us the freshness of the disciples of Antioch, who let your grace work in them so visibly that the world had to give them a new name. Send us a Barnabas where we need encouragement, and make us a Barnabas where another community is being born. With the simple heart of the Child of Bethlehem, may we so welcome your presence that those around us begin to glimpse, through us, the unity of the Father and the Son. Amen.
For Meditation
- Whose voices have I been letting shape me lately, and how attentive have I been to the voice of the Shepherd in their midst?
- Where in my life is a “small Antioch” — a place where the Spirit is at work in a way I had not foreseen, asking me only to rejoice and encourage?
- If those who know me had to give me a name based on my way of living, would the word “Christian” still come naturally?
