No Stranger to Evil

When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ (John 10: 4-5)

Good Shepherd Sunday and Mothers' Day fell on the same day this year. There is a special meaning to these holidays coming together. Colleges are also ending for this year, and young people are coming home from their freshman year in college. I remember my first weekend home from college. Mother wanted all of us to go to Mass together and to sit together in the same pew. Now at college, I was used to going to Mass at 5 PM or maybe 6 PM or maybe 10 PM, but I dragged myself out of bed and went to Mass with Mom in the morning to make it happen for her. And the Mass for the day was Good Shepherd Sunday. I had heard these readings before, but it was as if I were hearing them for the first time. I was supposed to be a sheep and be a follower of Christ. The readings convicted me. 

I went to the priest and asked him if he could hear my confession. Father looked at me like., "You're home from your first year in college and I'm going to hear your confession? Hmmm." Father hears confessions and he gets an earful about what happened in the first year of college. And after I got done with my very long confession, I said to Father, “But Father, I am confused. I believe in Jesus. I thought I was following Him. But if I am one of the sheep, why do I stray?” The Scripture reading says that the sheep do not follow the voice of strangers. I had been telling Father for 15, 20, 30 minutes how I had strayed. Was not I a sheep? Why was I straying?

Father said something that was filled with wisdom. He said, “The problem is not that you do not know the voice of Jesus. The problem is that you have been a friend to evil and sin. You do not know evil and sin as strangers, and, unless evil and sin are strangers to you, you cannot recognize the voice of Christ.”

Mother was trying to tell me this in her own way. Mother wanted me to come to Mass and be with her. This was the voice of Christ that I did not understand. I should have listened to Mother more often. I realized that when I was at school, I was not listening to Christ. I will had immersed myself in the world, not in Christ, and the world was no longer a stranger to me. I had to look at my friends. What was I like when I was with them? I was not conformed to Christ. I had to change who I was with and what I did. So I decided to get new friends and so I joined a fraternity! If joining a fraternity is a step up, that shows you how far I had fallen. What our friends to speak about and do will enhance or impede our faith.

My parents had a change of heart, a conversion, when I was in high school. They had to change their friends, too. When I went to the seminary I was immersed in Christ and in friends who knew Jesus. When I left the seminary for my summer vacation, my worldly friends were happy to see me again and asked me to go out with them, and I said, "Sure! Let's go!" But when I was with them, I was miserable. I realized that I did not want to go where they wanted to go. I had changed. I could not be happy and follow their voice any more. As a priest, I am happy that I follow the voice of the Lord.

Can you distinguish the voice of the Lord from the voice of evil? Have you become friends with evil and sin so they are no longer strangers to you? It is never too late to get new friends, to listen to the voice of the Lord, and to make evil and sin strangers again. My Mother’s prayers were what brought me back to the Lord. She prayed for me. She was an example by her very life. It was not that she spent a lot of time catechizing me, but she lived the life of the Good Shepherd through her prayers and example. It is she who brought me back into the fold of Christ. My Mother started to pray for our spouses when we were children. So that means that she has been praying for the Church and all of you, the Body of Christ, because you are my spouse! Let us come into the fold in response to our Mothers' prayers or anyone else’s and be part of the Good Shepherd’s flock.

Father Jacob Meyer, CFP Visitor