4th Sunday of Easter, 2023 - Fr. Leo
“The sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away because they do not recognize his voice.”
When my dad was in a care center after a major stroke, his long term memory was good. He could retell old stories with great color, but his short term memory was not so good. I realized this one day as foot steps came down the hall toward his room. He said, “Your mother is coming.” Sure enough around the door she came. He was so familiar with the unique sound of her gait and step that he recognized her coming from a distance.
From today’s gospel, we learn that sheep do the same. They will follow a voice that is familiar and ignore any that are not. Jesus uses this analogy to describe the voice of God’s truth, Jesus’ own voice. We recognize the goodness of the gospel because deep down each one of us were born in God’s image with his love implanted in our hearts.
Meditation with the scriptures is the time we become familiar with the way of the Lord. Some how we know goodness when we encounter it. Because it is embedded in our bones. Taking time to become more familiar with God’s voice every day is important because there are many voices in our noisy world that want to drown out goodness. The voice of materialism, egoism and power keeps trying to pull us away to embrace false god’s, false comforts and joys that only kill us in the end.
Like the voice of addiction, evil calls constantly with false promises that only destroy. So we are wise to set our eyes on the Lord and withdraw for a time each day to listen to the only voice that will bring life, the voice of the good shepherd. When we do, we will experience the resonance of God in our hearts and know a joy and peace only our Lord can give. Let us then seek the Lord and draw near to him that his loving voice may become our own!