The Shepherd's voice...
May 10, 2022
Dear Family of Mary!
The text below is the transcript of the last few minutes of Mary TV’s May 9, 2022, “Hour of Mercy,” which is a conversation with Denis and Cathy Nolan, starting at 21:40:
"Dear children! Also, today I call you to pray, pray, pray. Little children, when you pray you are close to God and He gives you the desire for eternity. This is a time when you can speak more about God and do more for God. Therefore, little children, do not resist but permit Him to lead you, to change you and to enter into your life. Do not forget that you are travelers on the way toward eternity. Therefore, little children, permit God to lead you as a shepherd leads his flock. Thank you for having responded to my call." (November 25, 2006)
Today in the Gospel the Lord talks about Himself as the good shepherd who calls for His sheep, and He comes in through the door, through the gate. The guys that steal sheep come over the fence. They’re jumping in from the sides illegally, and stirring up the sheep, trying to get some to follow them, but they can’t get out yet. The door has to be opened. Jesus comes and the sheep know His voice. And so, they willingly follow Him.
I think it’s really interesting that the voice is so important. And it seems to me that many of us don’t ever expect to hear the voice of the Shepherd. We think that’s for mystics and for other people but not for regular Christians. And so, I think we can miss out on a lot because we really do think the Lord, as our Shepherd, wants to help us to recognize His voice and follow Him.
[Denis interjects: “Dear children, I am looking at you and see that you are lost.” We need His voice... You’re right. Exactly!]
The Gospel for today is all about that. I think it would be good if we pray about that. Are we listening for the voice of our shepherd, or are we assuming that He is not going to speak to us, and kind of blindly fumble along in life...?
Jesus said:
“Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name.”
That means he’s not just talking to a flock of sheep. He’s talking to each individual sheep by name! Now if he is doing that, we should be hearing him. We should be!
“When he has brought out all his own he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice.”
Well, if the sheep are not expecting Him to speak to them then they’re not listening, they’re not going to be accustomed to His voice, they’re not going to be used to it. And they might not follow the right way outside of the sheepfold. Because they’re not listening to His voice, they don’t recognize the voice of the shepherd. It is very important that we know the voice of the Lord!
A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers.
We all hear lots of voices in our day. But do we recognize those voices as strangers and run away from them? I hope so. I hope we know the voice of Jesus well enough so that when a stranger, one who enters the fold another way, we’ll know that this is not the voice of the Lord, but it is probably the voice of the enemy!
“A stranger they will not follow but they will flee from him,” so what the Lord wants us to know that when we hear a voice counter to the voice of Christ, to what He’s told us in the Scriptures, to what we hear at Mass, to what the saints have told us, and also to what we’ve heard in our own heart – if we hear a voice that is contrary to that, run away from it as fast as you can! Eject it from your heart, eject it from your mind and your memory. It’s not the Lord!
And even if it is just a little bit different... Now it may not seem important but down the road you will be off in a wrong direction completely. So, we need to know the voice of the Lord!
Our Lady said to us on November 25, 2006:
"Dear children! Also, today I call you to pray, pray, pray. Little children, when you pray you are close to God and He gives you the desire for eternity.”
When we pray we are close to God, and what does He plant in our heart? A desire for heaven! A desire to be with Him forever! That’s the desire that we should be living out of – not “What kind of retirement home am I going to have?; Can I live in a beautiful place where there is sunshine all the time?” No. It’s not that. That’s all neutral. You can do it if that’s what you want. But what we yearn for should be heaven! She continues:
“This is a time when you can speak more about God and do more for God.”
When we’re close to God we can talk about him.
“Therefore, little children, do not resist but permit Him to lead you, to change you and to enter into your life.”
The result of our prayer should be that we allow the Lord to lead us, change us! That’s a big one! Change my habits. Change my desires.
“Do not forget that you are travelers on the way toward eternity.”
This is not our home. Heaven’s our home.
“Therefore, little children, permit God to lead you as a shepherd leads his flock!
“Thank you for having responded to my call."
Our Lady knows the Scriptures. We have to get to know the voice of the Lord! And then let Him lead us; recognize the voice of the Shepherd and let Him lead us to eternity.
It’s really important! If we’ve stopped giving time to listen to the Lord each day, start it today! We want the voice of the Shepherd.
And a good place to do it is at Adoration....so we are so blessed to have this opportunity now.
God bless you guys....
(And then Hour of Mercy concluded, as always, with a half hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament streamed LIVE from the Adoration chapel in Medjugorje.)
Here is the prayer to Our Lady we are praying every day in May!
In Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
Mary TV 2022
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