4th Sunday of Easter 2026 - Know the Shepherd's voice

 The 4th Sunday of Easter is called Good Shepherd Sunday and the imagery of shepherd and sheep is pervasive in today's Scriptures and I want to focus in particular  on knowing the Shepherds voice. 

We live in a world that is drowning in voices. From the moment we wake up, voices compete for our attention — voices on our phones, voices in the news, voices of friends and strangers, voices of politicians, voices of doubt, voices of fear, voices of ambition. Every voice promises something. Every voice claims to know the way. Today's Gospel is not merely an ancient pastoral image meant for first-century shepherds. It is a piercing, urgent question for every one of us gathered here today: “Do you know the voice of the Shepherd?”

In today's Gospel, Jesus uses a double image that might seem, at first glance, somewhat puzzling. He speaks of Himself as both the shepherd who enters through the gate, and then, remarkably, as the gate itself. It is worth sitting with this for a moment, because it tells us something profound about who Jesus is and what He means to do for us. You see, in the ancient near East, a shepherd's fold was not simply a fence. The shepherd himself would often lie across the opening at night, becoming, in his very body, the gate. Nothing came in and nothing went out without passing through him. He was the boundary between safety and danger, between belonging and being lost. He was, as Jesus says, the one through whom the sheep “will come in and go out and find pasture” (John 10:9). These are not small promises. Therefore the gate  is an invitation to abundance.

On the other hand are the thieves and robbers. Jesus is explicit: they do not enter through the gate. They climb over walls. They sneak in. And their purpose is not life: “The thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy” (John 10:10). Here, Jesus is warning us that not every voice, not every path that appears open to us, leads to life. Some voices steal. Some paths destroy.

“The sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” — John 10:3 (NABRE)

One of the most beautiful details in this passage is that Jesus, our Shepherd , calls us by name. Not by number or category. By name. That means He knows who you are: He knows your story, your struggles, your doubts, your hidden grief. He knows what you are carrying when you walked through that door today. The sheep, on the other hand, know His voice because they have spent time with Him. Shepherds in the ancient world spent day after day with their flocks: walking with them, feeding them, calling to them. And the sheep, gradually, unmistakably, learned to distinguish their shepherd's voice from every other voice.

So it is with us. Knowing the voice of the Shepherd is not a feeling you get once and carry forever. It is a discipline. It is cultivated through daily prayer, through the reading of Scripture, through the Eucharist, through quiet and stillness. If we are never quiet — if our ears are always filled with the noise of the world — how will we ever learn His voice?

You see, sheep, when they wander, do not usually run away dramatically. They simply put their head down, nibble this patch of grass, then another, then another and look up to find they are completely lost, with no idea how they got there. That is how most of us stray. Not in one dramatic act of rebellion, but in a thousand small distractions and compromises. A little less prayer. A little more noise. A voice that seems reasonable — a cultural value, a comfortable sin, an addiction to comfort — gradually, quietly leading us away from the fold. But the Shepherd always calls, He never stops.

But let us be practical for a moment. How do we discern, in the noise and complexity of our daily lives, which voice is the Shepherd's and which belongs to the thief? Jesus gives us a clear distinction “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The voice of the Shepherd leads to life. Not merely comfort, not merely what feels good in the moment, not what flatters us or confirms our biases, but genuine life, fullness of being, growth in love and holiness and truth. The voice of the thief, by contrast, may be very appealing. It may promise liberation or fulfillment or authenticity. But follow it far enough, and you find yourself more anxious, more empty, more alone, more enslaved. The thief always takes more than he gives.

So ask yourself, when you hear a voice — whether it comes from the culture, from social media, from your own interior monologue — ask: Does this voice lead me toward love, toward truth, toward self-giving, toward God? Or does it lead me toward self-absorption, toward darkness, toward the erosion of my dignity or the dignity of others? The best protection against deception is intimacy with the truth. If we know the Shepherd's voice deeply, we will recognize the counterfeit the moment we hear it.

So let us make a commitment today to carve out some silence. Open the Scriptures, take five minutes — just five — to sit before the Lord and listen. Not to speak, but to listen.

Because the Shepherd is calling. He knows your name. He is standing at the gate.