The Voice Of Peter Helps Us Hear The Voice Of The Good Shepherd – 4th Sunday of Easter – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; May 11, 2025

As we celebrate the election of Pope Leo XIV, successor of Peter and representative of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, we can reflect today on what it means to belong to the flock of Christ and listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd and how the voice of Peter helps us hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.

In today’s Gospel we heard Jesus affirm that his sheep hear his voice. It is not enough merely to hear, but we must hear and obey. It is the one who hears his word and does them that is likened to the wise man who builds his house on rock. (cf. Mt 7:24-25) Contrariwise, the one who hears but does not do is likened to the fool who builds his house on sand. (cf. Mt 7:26-27)

Hearing Jesus’ words and following him gives us the greatest security; Jesus promises, No one can take them out of my hand. The man, Jesus Christ, can make this promise because, as he affirms, The Father and I are one. As Son of God he is one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is the perfect mediator, sharing our nature, capable of being seen by us, and yet as God, even more perfectly united to the Father, the absolute origin, without origin, the source without source.

St. Paul, writing to the Hebrews, illustrated this with the words, In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. (He 1:1) The words of the prophets are not direct; they do not come from the face of God, so to speak, because the prophets themselves do not see the face of God but receive his word in faith. For that reason, their words, though precious, are also wrapped in obscurity. St. Paul continues, but in these later days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed as heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. (He 1:2) Now it is God himself who speaks to us, without another person as intermediary. Or in the words of St. John, No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. (Jn 1:18) The man Jesus, our Good Shepherd, speaks to us from the face of God and indeed speaks to us in the very person of God, because he is God, the Son in the bosom of the Father.

If, then, we hear his voice and follow him, we belong to his flock and are secure in his hand, sure of attaining his promise of eternal life.

First, though, we must hear his voice, even though we do not see and converse with him as did Peter when Jesus walked among us as a man. What, then, does it mean for us today to hear the voice of Jesus?

We can hear him speaking to us through the words of sacred Scripture and we can hear him, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, speaking to us interiorly in our soul.

St. Anthony of Egypt (3^rd century) heard the words of Jesus in the Gospel, If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor – you will have riches in heaven. Then come follow me. (Life of Saint Anthony, St. Athanasius, Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. 1 pg. 1304) He heard the words as spoken to himself and he acted upon them.

St. Augustine in the crisis of his life, unable to break with his past sins, heard a voice telling him, take and read, take and read. (cf. Confessions, Bk X, Ch. 12) He picked up a volume of St. Paul and his eyes fell upon this passage: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. (Rm 13:13-14) The very words spoke to him, giving him the power to do what they said; he broke with his past life and sought baptism at the hands of St. Ambrose.

So also, countless Christians, throughout the ages, meditating assiduously on the Scriptures have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd, though often in less dramatic ways, and followed after him. St. Ignatius of Loyola first heard the word of God indirectly, we could say, reading a book of the lives of the saints and reading a life of Christ. Through these means, the Good Shepherd spoke to him and changed his life.

St. Francis heard the Good Shepherd speaking to him from a crucifix, saying, “Rebuild my church, which, as you can see, is in ruins.”

The voice of the Shepherd, speaking through the Scriptures is not heard without prayer. Often times, without even holding the Scriptures in hand, some words of Scripture will sound with powerful effect in the depths of the soul. At other times, apart from the actual words of Scripture, the soul in prayer, opening herself to God, saying, Speak, Lord, your servant listens, (1 Sam 3:9) will receive a light from the Holy Spirit, and hear, as though a gentle whisper, the voice of the Shepherd, speaking within. (cf. 1 Kgs 19:12)

Yet, despite all this beautiful testimony regarding hearing the voice of the Shepherd, speaking in the words of Scripture or in the depths of the soul, we are faced also with a disturbing counter-testimony: the history of heresy. Throughout the centuries heretics have broken from the unity of the Church, claiming that they were following the words of Scripture or listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit within, yet contradicting the voice of the saints and the teaching of the Church.

St. John wrote: I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and know that no lie is of the truth. (1 Jn 2:21) The truth is one and the Holy Spirit of Truth does not contradict himself. There is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. (Eph 4:5)

It cannot be, then, that the Son of God became man for our salvation, gave his life for our sins, and showed us the path of true religion, and that all religions are equally ways to God. It cannot be that Christ founded one visible Church and that the Church is nothing more than the invisible, spiritual union of all who in some way believe in Christ. These are matters of great importance and great consequence.

All this means that we need some criteria for listening to the voice of the Shepherd besides Scripture and besides the interior voice of the Holy Spirit. We need some criteria that will get us outside of our own head. We need some criteria that will preserve us from the dangers of illusion and self-deception.

One such, criteria, I would say, is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In today’s 2^nd reading we heard that the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water. The title of the Lamb is suggestive of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. We do not merely believe in Jesus of 2,000 years ago, we do not merely believe in Jesus as described on the pages of the Gospels, we do not merely believe in Jesus who will come in glory to judge the living and the dead; we believe in Jesus who makes himself and his sacrifice present to his Church, here and now, in a very concrete form in the Holy Eucharist. We believe in Jesus who has given himself to us as the perfect worship of God.

Alas, the Holy Eucharist, the very sacrament of unity, has been and is often a source of contention. Altar can be, has been, and is, set up against altar in schisms that wound the unity of the Church, as though the Blood of the Lamb could be divided against itself.

So it is that we finally come to the voice of Peter. When Peter said to Jesus, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus told him, Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. (Mt 16,17) This is the Father, who is greater than all, the source of all security, from whose hand no one can be snatched. He is the guarantee of Peter and his successors. The faith of Peter, confessing, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, confirms and measures our faith and gives us assurance that we are truly hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd. This is the rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

One of the most dramatic historical examples of the voice of Peter was the Council of Chalcedon in 451AD when the Council Fathers, upon hearing a letter from Pope St. Leo the Great, declared, “Peter has spoken through Leo.” So it is that through the centuries the voice of Peter echoing through the Popes, confirms and measures our faith. When the voice of Peter sounds with authority through his successors, we are given strength and clarity.

There have been good Popes and bad Popes throughout history. The voice of Peter has not always sounded with such strength and clarity, but Peter is always capable of waking from his sleep, so to speak, so as to speak to us through his succcessors.

Now, may the Lord grant us to hear the voice of Peter speaking through Leo XIV. In his first Papal homily, the morning after his election, given to the Cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel, he did indeed echo the words of Peter: “’You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. In these words, Peter, asked by the Master … about his faith in him, expressed the patrimony that the Church, through the apostolic succession, has preserved, deepened and handed on for two thousand years. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: the one Savior, who alone reveals the face of the Father.” Pope Leo also had many beautiful things to say in that homily and he concluded with these words about his ministry: “to move aside so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that he may be known and glorified, to spend oneself to the utmost so that all may have the opportunity to know and love him.”

The voice of the Good Shepherd, the Book of Revelation tells us, is symphonic, like the sound of many waters. (Rev 1:15, cf. Rev 14:2) So, we each need to listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd, speaking to us in Scripture and speaking in the depths of our soul, but we need to listen for that voice in the midst of the Church, which gathers about the throne of the Lamb, to celebrate his sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist, and need verify to that voice by the voice of the saints, who listened to the Good Shepherd and bear witness to the Holy Spirit guiding the Tradition of the Church, and we need to verify that voice by the voice of Peter, resounding through the Popes. We need to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, and we need to follow him. The role of Peter and his successors is to help us hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.

May Pope Leo indeed be faithful to the office entrusted him, allowing us to hear the voice of Peter, giving us assurance of hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd.