OUR MASTER’S VOICE

           Our Lord speaks of His sheep listening to His voice. 

           Quite often, sheep belonging to different owners would be mixed together in one place. Sheep are by no means stupid. Even if there are many shepherds all calling out at once, they can recognize the voice of their own shepherd and they can follow it. Our Lord wants us to think about this carefully. Even though He is the only Creator of all the sheep, that is, of all the people in the world, there are many sheep, many human beings, who do not recognise Him. He is the Creator and Lord of all, yet not all acknowledge Him.

          It is a special gift indeed that enables us to recognise the voice of Our Lord. Moreover, we have to learn how to listen out for His voice in the midst of many conflicting voices clamouring for our attention. This is an image especially easy for us to understand in the modern world.  How many messages do we hear in the media? Among our friends and colleagues? From Government and from popular Personalities? How many of these messages and voices are quite contrary to the Gospel? You may well hear things on the television or radio, or read in newspapers or magazines, things that are not in accordance with what Christ teaches us in the Gospel, or which attempt to undermine our faith in Christ and in His voice.

          We have to learn (and re-learn) not to be misled by them, however reasonable they seem to sound at first.     ~ Fr. Paul Dobson