The following are foundational principles of Christianity for you to all ponder. The Church history, to the best of the author’s knowledge is true and correct.
In the Gospel of St. John, 10:1-10, Jesus compares himself to a shepherd and the Church to sheep. The thing about shepherds was that they spent so much time with the sheep. They lived among their sheep so that the sheep would not be killed by wild animals or stolen by other people. Both of those were very real possibilities, so they just stayed with them. Nothing wrong with being a good steward over your flock, right? Apparently, the sheep got to know the voice of their shepherd because of his always being with them. Jesus is saying today that it should be that way with us and him. We should hear his voice as he calls us out by name and leads us out.
In the Gospel of St. John, 10:1-10, Jesus compares himself to a shepherd and the Church to sheep. The thing about shepherds was that they spent so much time with the sheep. They lived among their sheep so that the sheep would not be killed by wild animals or stolen by other people. Both of those were very real possibilities, so they just stayed with them. Nothing wrong with being a good steward over your flock, right? Apparently, the sheep got to know the voice of their shepherd because of his always being with them. Jesus is saying today that it should be that way with us and him. We should hear his voice as he calls us out by name and leads us out.
Out of what?
In those times, there were sheep pens dotting the countryside for the use of the shepherds. The shepherds took the sheep to where there was food, like a grassy meadow. When that food was used up, they moved on to the next place. Near the grassy meadows, sometimes there was a big communal sheep pen, and often more than one shepherd would put his sheep in the pen to protect them during the night. The next day one shepherd would call out his sheep from the group to move on to a new place for food. The sheep belonging to that shepherd would follow him because they knew his voice and would not follow someone else’s voice. Much of secular society does not believe that God communicates with his people. But, The Bible makes it clear that God speaks to us in various ways and even sometimes, personally. From the point of view of The Bible, we were born to hear that voice. It makes sense that if God created us, we belong to Him, so we were meant to hear his voice and follow it and reject other voices. So, it follows that, I would like to talk about some of the ways that God speaks to us.
First, God speaks to us through his Word, which we call The Bible. Many times, something in us stirs when we hear the words of The Bible, perhaps because we instinctively know that it is meant for us. The Bible teaches us so much about God, the world, ourselves, the mess we find ourselves in, and how we can get out of that mess. It inspires us, makes us think, challenges us, and sometimes confounds us. So, a serious Christian, one who is a true disciple, spends some time with the scriptures because God speaks to his people through them, telling them what He is like, what he wants us to do and not do, and all kinds of things. Some years ago, a woman approached me after Mass to tell me that something in my homily really touched her heart. I asked her which part and the words that she said appeared nowhere in my homily. It was when I was reading the Gospel that this happened. It’s an example of God’s word hitting someone directly. Another important way that God speaks to us is through the teachings of the Church. Many of the Church’s teachings are based upon The Bible, but not all. We see this in action when Peter says to Jesus and the other apostles that Jesus is not just the Messiah, he is also the Son of the Living God. Peter didn’t get that from The Bible, which at that point, would have been only the Old Testament. The New Testament hadn’t been written yet. So where did he get it? Jesus tells us in the next verse: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” In other words, Jesus was creating a Church where the Pope (Peter was the first) would receive revelations from time to time that would serve as a guiding voice for the Church, speaking to her over the centuries in order to lead her to all truth.
The Pope and Bishops have another important role to play in the Church when they officially interpret the scriptures. Saint John Henry Newman was a priest in the Church of England in the 1800s. He was really bothered by the fact that so many different Protestant denominations were being created in his own time, sometimes because two factions of people in a church would disagree on the meaning of a single verse of The Bible. Newman began to see that, if there wasn’t a central, authoritative interpreter, divisions would result. There’s over 30,000 different Christian denominations today. He didn’t see this happening in the Catholic Church, and so he began to read in depth about the Catholic Church, and even read in depth the early Church fathers. There he saw that Catholics in the first few centuries of the church were teaching the same thing that they were teaching in the Catholic Church of Newman’s time. He knew this was not true in the Protestant world, where teachings differed from church to church based on the different interpretations of scripture. So, Newman converted to the Catholic Church in 1845 and later was made a Cardinal.
Another important area where Christ speaks to us is through the lives of the saints. If you start reading about the saints, you begin to see that they became saints through the grace of God working within that saint’s personality. And that Saint showed a little different side of the voice of Christ. Over the centuries, we have over 20,000 people who have been declared saints. That’s over 20,000 different examples of how a sinful human being can be transformed by Christ to reach the goal that all of us want to reach. Because of this, their lives are worth looking at. There has to be a saint that is very much like you, who faced similar challenges, whose life story is similar, has common elements, and whose temperament is very much like yours. If you can get to know that saint, he or she could be of great help to you.
Christ’s voice can be heard in the Liturgy, especially the Mass. It happens to me sometimes, and, I’ve heard some of you say it too. There are times where people feel the presence of Christ invade them during the Mass. And yet, so many people stay away from the Mass. Some recent studies say that upwards of 75% of Catholics don’t think it’s important to go to Mass every week. Guess what? They’re missing out on Christ speaking to them, and having his real presence inside of them. Christ speaks to us in our conscience. We can hear Jesus warning us not to do some things and encouraging us to do others. But, I have to say, this only works in a well formed conscience. There are people who have surrounded themselves with things so contrary to Christ that their consciences don’t work correctly anymore. Conscience is formed from childhood. It needs good examples. It listens to the scriptures and to the church. If it is cut off from these things, it begins to die. Our conscience sometimes speaks to us through guilt. The secular world has no use for guilt. It sees guilt only as repressive, unhealthy, and that which gets in the way of my happiness. Now, I’ll grant that there is some guilt that is unhealthy. But, if I’ve hurt someone or abused my sexuality or do something that hurts my integrity, or turned away from God, a good, healthy, functioning conscience will make me feel guilty. It’s supposed to.
Finally, there is prayer. Those of us who have a daily prayer life sometimes notice that some thought in their head came there during their prayer, but did not originate with the person. Many people have noticed this including me. It doesn’t happen every day, but it does seem to happen on a regular basis. These are just some of the ways that God speaks to us. There are others, but this is a good start at the ways we hear the voice of the shepherd. There are thousands of other voices that compete with the shepherd’s voice, trying to entice us to give them our focused attention. These voices tell us things about our sexuality, marriage, the place of money and things. Honor. Titles. Lying and cheating to get ahead. I would say most every newscast, movie, book, magazine, newspaper, and commercial – whatever segment of media there is – there is at least one of these voices in it. It’s become so commonplace that it now defines what normal is in our society. They tell us what to think about sexuality and marriage and so forth and really do affect how people think. So now, we are weird ones from secular society’s point of view. Why? Because they’ve been taught what to think over and over and over in every setting possible, which is how brain washing gets the job done. If we do not have the ability to critique the voices that are contrary to the voice of the Good Shepherd, eventually we will think what these other voices are trying to tell us. These are the thieves and robbers. And they are Legion. When we focus on these voices, they rob us of true life, peace, joy, harmony. In prayer, I would suggest this prayer every night before you go to bed: “Examination of conscience: How much do I look and sound like the world? I came that you may have life and have in abundance. But that requires us to hear and focus on the voice of the Good Shepherd.”
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