HEARING HIS VOICE AND FOLLOWING HIM Easter 4

fr lou shares his memories of Peter John, in Ireland, taking care of his sheep.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

A few years ago, I went with Jerry to Ireland to visit his family, and one day he was talking about Peter John, one of his relatives, who owned the farm with animals. Now I'm a city boy, so animals on a farm are novelty to me. So we went to see Peter John, and as it turns out, one of his animals had a calf the night before. So he had to go take care of the mother. And we were in the house, and I said, Can I go out with you? He says, Well, you wouldn't want to walk in the muck. I said, Well, I'll be careful, but I I don't see animals up close. So I want to see the sheep and the cows. Okay, he said. So I went out into the muck, walked into the the um enclosure, and he showed me the animal that had a fold the night before. And I said, Oh, I said, it's beautiful, and the baby was beautiful. And I said, What it what's its name? He said, Father Lu. We don't name the sheep. I said, Well, okay. Uh, how about if I just bless it? So I blessed it and I named it Rosie. So one of his sheep is Rosie. Years later we went back and Rosie was quite big. Jesus is talking about naming his sheep. So Jesus is, I can do it, right? And he's not talking about sheep, he's giving them a great metaphor. He's trying to teach the Pharisees how they had been poor leaders. They weren't leading their people correctly. And in his little metaphor, he refers to them as thieves and marauders and robbers because they weren't doing the job they were supposed to do, lead their sheep. And a shepherd, besides taking care of the sheep, is a well-known metaphor in history of the Jews. Their king was referred to as a shepherd. The leader of people were referred to as shepherds. Their Pharisees and Sadducees were supposed to be shepherds. People who lead by example and teaching. So Jesus given this great metaphor, and he makes it very clear that I say to you, I am the shepherd. I'm the gate, I'm the shepherd, you hear my voice and you follow me, and we're okay. Now, just so you know, the metaphor carries on a little more specifically. Sheep folds were in a cage with a gate. The animals were inside. The shepherd would come and open the gate, as Jesus mentions. I mean, he's talking to people who do this for a living, so you know there was no lack of information and no lack of connection. So they knew that a shepherd whose job was to keep that gate closed in the fold because the sheep were inside and they had to be taken care of. The shepherd didn't want them stolen, didn't want them to roam around, didn't want them to get lost, didn't want them to follow false leaders. So he knew each one of his sheep. This is Jesus talking about sheep. But now we know he's talking about us. We can be led astray by anything, by false leaders. We could be led astray by great promises that are false. We could be led astray by the allure of sex, money, drugs, power, and the list goes on. Now we're not sheep, but we are listening to the voice of the good shepherd, as he refers to himself more than once in the scriptures. The good shepherd who cares for his sheep. Take it one step further. The good shepherd who cares for you and me. He knows our voices. He knows us by name. In the scriptures today, we have the beginning in the Acts of the Apostles, one of Peter's great charismas. Peter gave about four or five great speeches in the Acts of the Apostles. And all of them talk about Jesus coming from God, being our gift from God, and giving us direction as to how to follow God. That's the Acts of the Apostles. So this is nothing new. Peter was using the information that he had gleaned from Jesus and from listening to Jesus. In the second reading, we have that beautiful letter from Peter again telling us that if we suffer for doing good, we'll be rewarded, and God will be with us. So if we suffer for standing up for appropriate behaviors, whether that's political, whether that's conversational, if we stand up for what's right, we're not going to win, we're not going to get a reward, we're going to suffer. We'll be isolated. But he's telling us if you are patient when you suffer for doing good, this is grace before God. So when we hear that Jesus hears our voice in the metaphor of being his sheep, those readings from the Holy Scriptures really apply. Because we can be listening to Jesus' words in church, and then as soon as we go out, listening to other people's words. And I don't mean neighbors or family and friends, big, big voices, politicians, philosophers, big important people, actors, actresses, big significant people, or little significant, insignificant people, whose voices we listen to on the internet, on Instagram, on Facebook. And the disease, the mental disorder that has arisen from our use of the internet. Phenomenal, especially young people. Why? Because they're listening to the voices of the false shepherd. How to be beautiful, how to be rich, how to be famous, how to be popular. This is not Jesus' concerns. He's not saying, in order to be my sheep, you gotta be beautiful, you've got to be rich, and you gotta be popular. No, no, no. We use the scriptures and we say, in order to be his shepherd, excuse me, in order to be a sheep of Jesus, a follower of Jesus. We're not sheep, we're not animals. In order to be a follower of Jesus, we're gonna suffer. We don't have to suffer, but we're probably gonna suffer. The world goes one way and we go the other. When we're seeking a close relationship with God, who comes to us in the flesh in Jesus, we have to realize it's gonna be a challenge to live that way. It's gonna be a challenge to be faithful. We receive the body of Christ in the Eucharist. When we leave here, the body of Christ goes with us, and we are part of the body of Christ. And it's not easy because there are other voices out there. And I'm not being psychotic, I'm not being paranoid. There are other voices out there that call us and call us by name. Jesus knew that would happen. That we're gonna be distracted, that we're gonna be pulled in different directions. We who are Catholics, we who are followers of Jesus Christ are gonna be tempted. But we're taught by Jesus to hold on, to hear his voice and follow his voice. Metaphorically, just like a good shepherd would go ahead and his sheep would follow him because they recognize his voice. He tells us, you know, in the 21st century, you're gonna hear voices that you want to follow, that you want to travel with. Don't, because they're not my voice. So he knew the future would be a challenge for us. And the scriptures know that we're gonna suffer as a result of that challenge. Peter knew, Paul knew, all the apostles knew, that if we really tune in, and that's prayer, by the way, tune in to the voice of Jesus and acclimate ourselves to his voice in all we do. It's not going to be easy. But if you love someone, you know the best way to show that love is to want what's best for him or her. And that's not easy. Because we're a me-me-me society. We want to take care of ourselves. We want to achieve and go back to the internet, the communication tool that we use so well in the 21st century, and the number of people that are suffering from that. Really, mental disorders rising up from listening to the wrong voices. And through the centuries, there have been many of those wrong voices. They exist even today. But we have the right voice. We have the voice of Jesus speaking to each one of us. As a matter of fact, stop for a second and say your own name in your head. Just say your name. Jesus hears that. And Jesus is speaking to that person in prayer. He's available to every one of us. He's the good shepherd. And another thing to remember about the shepherd, at night they had a gate, the shepherd would lay down there at the gate so no one could come in, and his shepherd his sheep would not leave. He's protecting us always. And we saw him lay down his life. We just remember the beautiful holy week passion. He laid down his life, but the Father brought that life back to us. So he loves us that much that he hears every one of our voices, he knows us, and invites us to follow him every day.