“The Shepherd’s Voice”
How do we hear the shepherd’s voice and when do we usually hear it?
Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice. . . and they follow me.”
I recently read a story about Jamie, an eight year old who died of cancer. In the final stage of his illness, he began talking out loud, especially in the middle of the night, when he couldn’t sleep.
Whenever his mother heard him, she would rush to his room to see if he needed something. He would thank her and assure her that he was fine.
One night she heard him talking out loud twice. After the first time she came to his room he thanked her and assured her that he was fine.
The second time she came, he said: “Mom, you don’t have to come every time you hear me. Usually I’m just talking to God.”
Jamie’s father worried and wondered if his son might be hallucinating. So he asked him: “Jamie, when you talk to God, does He talk back to you? Do you hear His voice, just as you hear my voice now?”
Jamie gave his dad a puzzled look and said “Dad, I don’t hear God’s voice with my ears, but with my heart.”
That brings us to today’s Gospel, when Jesus says:
“My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”
One way we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd is the way Jamie heard it, with the inner ear of our soul. This same inner ear picks up the “voice” of our conscience by which God can speak to us at any moment of the day or night.
Referring to this “voice” of our conscience, Cardinal John Newman said:
“We have no power over it, or only with extreme difficulty.
We cannot destroy it, we may refuse to use it, but it remains.
Its very existence throws us outside of ourselves, to go seek and search for him, whose Voice it is. John Henry Newman, Cf. Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Probably the most important way that the Good Shepherd speaks to us is through the ears of our body. He does this through the Scriptures, especially the Gospels.
Because it is the most important way, we stand when the Gospel is proclaimed. It also explains why the reading is preceded by the Gospel acclamation.
This is also why some trace the sign of the cross on the forehead, lips, heart and the Gospel reading just before the Gospel is read. Some may say these words “May the word of God be ever in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart that I may worthily proclaim it through word and example.”
How should we listen to God’s word?
First with our body, that is, with reverent attention.
An early Christian preacher Origen, around 200 A.D., use to tell his congregation:
“You receive the Body of the Lord with special reverence, lest even a tiny crumb fall to the floor. – You should receive the Word of the Lord in the same way.”
Second, we listen with our mind, as we try to make the passage come alive in our imagination.
We should try to visualize the scene, as we put ourselves in the shoes of the one of the apostles or a bystander and feel the excitement Jesus’ followers felt as they watched it unfold.
Third, we listen with our heart. We should “take the Gospel to heart.”
After hearing God’s word and receiving His body, do we treat all we meet as our brother, or do we leave God here and immediately go back to holding onto our grudges and creating confrontations with our neighbor?
Finally, we listen with our soul, meaning to listen with faith. We believe God’s word is true and has the power to touch us and transform us.
So, we listen with faith and hope, knowing that if we listening to it as we should, the day will come when it will touch us profoundly and change our lives in a way we never dreamed possible.
Our second reading, from the book of Apocalypse, describes John’s vision of the great crowd of the saved from all nations. This reinforces the idea of Jesus as the savior not just of the Jews but also of the whole world.
Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel are a bit subtler. In other parts of the Gospels, Jesus welcomes those who are not Jewish, Romans, Samaritans and those rejected by Jewish society. In today’s passage he uses the image of sheep and their shepherd. It’s an image we frequently find in the Bible. King David is described a shepherd boy, the psalm “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Talks of God’s care for us, and Jesus tell the parable of the lost sheep. Today we hear Jesus’ promises that his sheep will be cared for; and these sheep will not just be cared for in this life, but will have eternal life and can never be lost.
Sheep are not the most intelligent of animals. They often graze on hillsides that are too steep and they fall over on their backs. Once fallen over they can’t right themselves. If left there, they would die. Because of this, the shepherd has to keep a close eye on them lest they place themselves in danger.
Often, we too, are not very intelligent and place ourselves in danger of dying. Only by listening to the word of God and his leading us that we avoid the loss of our eternal life.