EASTER IV (C)

My sheep hear my voice. – John 10: 27

   Do we REALLY hear His voice? I’m sure we’ve all had the experience, especially at social gatherings, of someone speaking to us & we hear their words but we’re not really listening due to being distracted. We nod to be polite, but we really haven’t heard. With our Lord, the difficulty goes deeper than mere inattentiveness.

   To truly hear His voice, we must resonate, be on the same frequency with Him. It requires a profound shift of consciousness that means more than attending to His words. It entails discerning WHO He is. To share His consciousness means to know ourselves as He knows us – a child of God whose identity is eternally intertwined with His. To know this is to know that we are here to serve, not be served.

   Good Shepherd Sunday is usually associated with vocations in a narrowly defined sense; but there is an important sense in which it may be said that God has given each of us a vocation – not so much to DO something as to BE something. Discerning what that something IS, is by no means simple; but it is unique to each one of us. The important thing is to realize that it is given by God. It is not something that we dream up on our own. It is nothing less than our reason for existing.

   My own spiritual journey has taught me this much: for all the talk of the sacrifice that comes with a God-given vocation [& no vocation worth its salt comes without a cost that can sometimes be high indeed], the consolations that come with it more than make up for any trials involved. Athletes endure all sorts of things for the taste of victory, & I know of no greater victory than the one Christ has won for us. It truly defies verbal description.

   I’m convinced that those people who fail to realize God’s vocation for them will remain, in a fundamental sense, unhappy. Yes, they may be pleased with their work or life, but there will always be an underlying uneasiness that comes with being disjointed & dislocated. Something isn’t right, but they cannot put their finger on just what it is. Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven”:

   I fled from Him, down the nights & down the days; I fled from Him,

Down the arches of the years; I fled from Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; & in the mist of tears I hid from Him, & under running laughter.

   Up vistaed hopes I sped; & shot, precipitated, adown titanic glooms of chasmed fears, from those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, & unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat – & a voice beat more instant than  the Feet – “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

   You see, the price we pay for NOT hearing Christ’s call is far greater than anything we might pay to follow Him. It costs us nothing less than our souls, & deprives us of a taste of heaven. I sometimes think our prayers for vocations are misdirected: they really should be for those who, for whatever reason, either do not hear His voice or hearing it turn away. Their fate in life is truly to be pitied.  AMEN!