Since
we are the flock of the Lord, the people that He shepherds, we must,
like those good sheep, follow Him where He calls us.
In
order to follow,
we ourselves must be listening
to the Good Shepherd, so that we can start to recognize His voice.
One way a Christian must practice listening is in our daily prayer.
Another is in Mass, especially in Sacred Scripture. Occasionally
even the homily might say something useful and we hear Jesus speaking
to us. Always, though, we have our conscience:
(Catechism of the Catholic Church) 1776
"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not
laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him
to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart
at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed
by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his
sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his
depths."
(GS
16)
1777
Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at
the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges
particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing
those that are evil. It bears witness to the authority of truth in
reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and
it welcomes the commandments. When
he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.
This
is the voice of Jesus speaking to you, call it the voice of Truth.
God is Truth, so when we see Truth in our minds or our hearts, we
must take it as God's voice.
HOOK
On Wednesday I sat down for a little television before Fr. Bill and I
said our prayers and found a movie my family had watched many times
while growing up: Hook. Since the last time I watched Hook was a
decade or more ago, I had a much keener sense of the values it was
promoting (especially about fatherhood and committment) and I can
really approve it even more! This movie retells Peter Pan as a
middle-aged man whose children, Jack and Maggie, are kidnapped by the
villainous Captain James Hook. As a way to get revenge on Peter Pan,
Mr. Hook manipulates his son Jack to forget about his father and see
the Captain as his new father. Jack is eventually worn out by the
lies and allurements of Captain Hook's methods, and becomes convinced
that he is better off in his new situation. It fits beautifully with
today's Gospel about the sheep hearing the voice of the shepherd: If
we are listening well, we will be able to know the words of the Lord
Jesus, the One and Only Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the
sheep. However, there are other voices out in the world, and we must
not let ourselves be deceived. Radio, television, literature, all
can be things that give us messages that are very destructive even
though we may not notice (just like I didn't notice the value of Hook
until re-watching some of it). If we aren't giving ourselves
opportunities to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, how long
can we listen to those lies and allurements (as Jack listened to
Hook) before we start to give in to them?
What
happened in Boston will probably be seen, when facts are sorted out,
as a combination of multiple evil forces and bad choices among many
individuals. But certainly a part of it is the corruption of
conscience: the Voice of Truth that beckons all of us to do good,
avoid evil, and seek truth, was twisted, marred, and abused after
listening to lie after lie, again and again. The best way to work
against this evil and for good is to try our best to listen for and
respond to the voice of Truth in our conscience.
And
lastly, let us speak the Truth boldly as well. If our world only
hears other voices of lies and distractions, then they will not get
very far. We need to help the Good Shepherd's voice of Truth get out
there. So speak the Truth and discover the power it has, not from
you, but from Him.
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