The Homily
4th Sunday of Easter
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Acts 13: 14, 43-52 +Psalm 100 + Revelation 7:9, 14-17 + John 10: 27-30
Audio version of homily
It takes more than ears to hear the Shepherd’s voice these days. The age of technology has led us into a life-style of imitation. Hardly anything is real, and finding something real these days takes skill, critical observation, and an ability to discern what is fake and cheap. Digital reproductions trick the ear and the eye, and they leave us satisfied with what is fake and false. We live now in perplexing society of wolves dressed as sheep, of pseudo-values marked as good. Political parties claim to support the politics and politicians of “values” but no one ever says what those values are.
Hearing the voice of the Shepherd is getting harder with all the noise of this society.
In fact, listening is becoming a lost skill.
When we run into someone these days who is a good listener, we know that we have found someone unique.
There is something going on among us all these days that confuses hearing and listening. We have decided that people who do not listen have not heard; and then we say that those who do not agree with us or do what we want have not listened; which of course is not true. Just because we don’t get our way does not mean we have not been heard or no one listened. It seems to me that hearing comes first. It is the immediate perception of a sound. It is a recognition of the other. Listening comes next.
Listening is more involved and requires some attention and reflection. It is not something easily done while doing something else. When is no double-tasking when listening.
When Jesus says that his sheep hear his voice, he means that the sheep recognize the shepherd. It is the first step toward conversion, the first step toward the relationship, the first movement toward listening. Hearing the voice invites us to stop and then listen. For those who would be disciples of Jesus, hearing the voice of the shepherd is the ultimate, relentless priority. But there is so much noise in this world: so many fake voices, so many fake shepherds promising so many pseudo values
that are all substitutes for something real.
Members of this flock who hear the voice of Jesus know their shepherd, and they stop to listen.
Yet the culture in which we live today does not value what it takes to listen……
silence, attention, devotion, respect, desire, openness are the tools or the skills of a real good listener. These are the qualities of a disciple. Those who would be disciples of Jesus Christ must be so today in a nation of choice where there is so much noise and so many conflicting voices that we can confuse freedom with license, and individual choice has boundaries: an unwanted pregnancy, a dying old man, a boring marriage
all become subject to individual discretion or choice. Any challenge, any question, any suggestion that something might not be right
is shouted down by the noise of individual freedom and the demand for one’s individual rights!
Hearing the voice of the Shepherd is impossible while individuals demand their way, ignore the common good, and shout down those who do not think their way or share their so-called “values.”
It will never be possible to hear the voice of the shepherd with all this noise. It will never be possible to tell was is from what is fake. We have to find some quiet time in our lives, some quiet time every day or we shall never discern the Good Shepherd, the True Shepherd, who has come to show us, to lead us, and to call us to the Father.
If we cannot hear the voice of the Shepherd, we shall never belong to the flock.
— Fr. Boyer
