Jn 10:22-30
At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Hearing God’s Voice
Once for a homily on this Gospel—“My sheep hear my voice”—I asked four children if I could blindfold them, and then had two people whom they knew only somewhat say a few words out loud from the congregation. I then asked the children to guess who those two were. They wonderfully heard, knew, and named the voices correctly.
In turn, though not audible literally, we, too, can hear and recognize Jesus’ voice. How? One way is by “hearing” the “voice” of grace, in the form of charity, peace, patience, gentleness, self-control, goodness, perseverance, joy—the fruits of the Holy Spirit which rise up within us.
These fruits are the discernible ways by which we, as sheep, hear his voice and urging. Then, once hearing, we try to abide in that voice and grace, reminiscent of Isaiah 30:21, “And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”
What voice of the Lord Jesus—which gift of his Spirit—will you hear in your soul today? Truly, it is his voice. Walk in it.
—Fr. Richard Baumann, SJ, is a regional vocation director for the Midwest Jesuits, and also offers talks on Ignatian and Jesuit spirituality.
Prayer
I have made a free oblation of myself to your Divine Majesty, both of life and of death. This is all I desire. Amen.
—St. Edmund Campion, SJ