Listening to The Voice of The Shepherd

17th APRIL, 2016. FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR C)-GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY.

SCRIPTURE READING:
Acts 13:14.43-52
Ps 100:1-2.3.5 (R.3c)
Rev. 7:9.14b-17; Accl; Jn. 10:14.
Gospel Jn. 10:27-30.

Preamble:
Dear friends please repeat these words after me;
Stay with me Lord Jesus, as I give you my mind, may your word never depart from me.
Stay with me Lord Jesus, as I give you my ears, help me listen and obey your voice.
Stay with me Lord Jesus, as I give you my heart, help me welcome you always.
Holy Spirit, rekindle in me the fire of your love. Amen.

THEME: LISTENING TO THE VOICE OF THE SHEPHERD.
One of the greatest ways of growing spiritually is the ability to cultivate the habit of silence. Silence is not the absence of talking but the stillness of the interior part of man, to be calm, to be recollected such that one can put his thoughts together, listen to the divine and follow in the direction of the Lord.
Spiritual masters of old cultivated the habit of silence such that they were able to compose sacred music, write great reflections that offers direction to us even today.
The great spiritual masters tell us that God is silence because he is spirit. He speaks through his prophets and his creation. It is only in silence that you can hear his message, really hear it. It is a still, small voice and you cannot hear it in noise and in mental confusion.
Silence is that state of total listening. The silence of imagination and of the senses is full of intensity, of attention and recollection. It is always necessary to be and to live with God. Silence is the important condition of prayer.
Jesus Christ advises us in Matthew 6, “When you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your father, who is unseen. And your father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.”
The prophet Elijah had an enlightening experience of the silent presence of God on Mount Sinai. He was tired and running away from his enemies who tried to kill him. “Go out and stand before me on top of the mountain,” the Lord said to him. Then the Lord passed by and sent a furious wind that split the hills and shattered the rocks-but the Lord was not in the wind.
The wind stopped blowing, and then there was an earthquake-but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire-but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the soft whisper of a voice. 1 kings 19.
We cannot perceive God’s presence, understand his will, listen to his whisper in the midst of noise-noise without or noise within. We must let ourselves down into the relaxed, peaceful silence of God so that we recognize his whispering, even through our conscience.
Then from silence, filled by God, comes the voice of truth, and we can taste the beauty and the Good. The kind that the gospel passage speaks of which implies knowing the voice, understanding the voice and its message and following in obedience that silent voice.
He says, I am the good shepherd. And I know my sheep (that is, I love them) ‘and my sheep know me.’ It is as if he said plainly: ‘Those who love me, obey me.’ For those who do not love the truth do not yet know it.
We need to ask ourselves individually-are you his sheep? Do you know him, if you do can you recognize the light of truth? This recognition of truth of what means do you recognize it? Is it simply by faith or by love? I mean, do you recognize it not just by belief but by action. For John the apostle, whose words we have been discussing, also said: ‘He who says he knows God but disobeys his commandments is a liar.’
When Jesus said …as the father knows me and I know the father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. It is as if he said straight out: ‘the proof that I know the father and the father knows me is the fact that I lay down my life for my sheep; that is to say, the love which leads me to die for my sheep shows how much I love the father. ’
He goes on to add the following words concerning the sheep: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life.” in the preceding verses, he also said: “if anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” That is to say, he will go in faith, and go out from faith to vision, from belief to contemplation, and he will find pasture at the everlasting feast in the kingdom of God.
To gain this eternal life which the Lord promises us as the eternal and faithful shepherd is that we follow the Lord with an undivided heart that is the only way the sheep that follows the Lord will find fresh and green pasture. The pasture we are talking about is to find the deepest joys of the everlasting fresh pastures of paradise. For the pasture of the saints is to see God face to face; when the vision of God never fails, the soul receives its fill of the food of life forever.
Beloved in Christ, there is a general complaint about the silence of God in time of temptation, of trouble, of suffering, of illness even as we seek this green pasture. This silence at times makes it difficult to accept God’s existence, the existence of good and merciful God. But the truth is that we cannot understand the mystery-God in complaints, agitations, worries, anxieties, and complaints owing to the trials and temptations we find ourselves in but only in silence.
The biblical man-Job, the good man who suffers total disaster, describes the dramatic situation of one in front of the silence of God, “what does Almighty God do to us?”
But the voice of God makes Job realize his limits? “Who are you to question my wisdom? Stand up like a man and answer the questions I ask you. Were you there when I made the world? Have you ever in all your life commanded a day to dawn?” Job 38.
And God invites him to give an answer. Then Job makes his confession, “you ask how I dare question your wisdom when I am so ignorant. I talked about things I did not understand, about marvels too great for me to know-Job 42.”
In the presence of God, we find the wisdom to remain: in silence, in submission, in simplicity and in sublimation. And there are gains of silence;
Gains of Silence
In silence you grow in faith.
In silence you discover the greatness of God
In silence you discover yourself and resolve the mental confusion that has possessed you.
In silence you discover the beauty of nature and the great works of the Lord.
In silence you see yourself as you are, grow, and develop yourself.
Silence helps us see our bad attitudes and seek ways to work on them.
Silence kills negative thoughts-they die still born.
Silence helps us to control our negative emotions, such as pride, anger, envy, jealousy, hostility, prejudice which will arise in a person living under stress and having a crowded day.
Silence is necessary to educate and set free our positive emotions such as love, joy, hope, enthusiasm, zest.
Silence helps us to control and handle conflicts arising from a stressed day.
Beloved today is Good Shepherd Sunday also known as the Vocation Sunday, a day we encourage our young ones who have the desire to become priest or religious life to feel free to talk to me about this. The vocation to the priesthood and religious life is the greatest gift of God to the world and men and women of courage have embraced it despite the challenges that come with such decision. It is a life of sacrifice, a life of prayer, a life of total self abandonment to the will of God.
Those who are in the priestly and religious vocations did not fall from the sky, they came from families-I encourage parents to talk to their children about vocation to the priestly and religious life-it is not a wasted life but a life gained. Let us pray for increase to the priestly and religious life.