Six years ago this month, Jack, a close friend of mine died.  After his death I regularly called Peggy his widow just to check on her.  One evening about four months after Jack’s death I called Peggy.  After a couple rings of the phone I heard the sound of the answering machine respond to my call.  The voice that greeted me was Jack!  When Peggy returned my call the next evening I mentioned that Jack’s greeting was still on her answering machine thinking that with all she had had to deal with through Jack’s illness, death and funeral that she had not had time or had forgotten to change the message on her phone system.  “I know, Jim” Peggy said as she chocked back tears, “I just can’t bring myself right now to change the greeting and erase Jack’s voice.  It’s all of him I have left.  Sometimes I play the recording just to hear his voice again.  Hearing him, his beautiful voice, brings me great comfort now that he is no longer physically here with me.”

             This weekend, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we reflect on how we hear the voice of the dead and risen Jesus and in turn experience his on-going presence with us through the image of a shepherd and his sheep as we celebrate “Good Shepherd Sunday.” 
 
            To hear and recognize another person by voice by necessity signifies that a relationship between the two entities exists.  In biblical times, and still in nomadic cultures today, when being given charge of sheep for which a shepherd had responsibility, the shepherd routinely gave each of them a name.  In doing so, the shepherd established a bond between the sheep and himself.  By nature, sheep once they have become bonded to the sound of the voice of their human shepherd, they will not follow any other voice.  Jesus speaks to this personal relationship he has with all the people God has given him when he tells us, “the sheep hear his (the shepherd’s) voice as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them. …The sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice” (Jn. 10:3-5).
 
            As he hung dying on the cross, some of the last words spoken by Jesus brought our belonging to him into being.  Turning to Mary his mother and the disciple known as the “Beloved” Jesus entrusted them to the care of each other.  Then, St. John the Evangelist tells us, Jesus “bowed his head and handed over the spirit” (Jn. 19:30).  More than a description of the physical death of Jesus, this was the moment of the beginning of the resurrection and glorification of Jesus as his spirit, the Holy Spirit the breath of life and bond of love between Jesus and the Father, passed into the hearts and lives of Mary and the Beloved Disciple. As Jesus physically left this world, in Mary and the Beloved Disciple we see revealed the Church through which his presence and his voice continue in the world until the end of time.
 
            In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles we hear and see the effect of the voice of Jesus as he speaks through the preaching of St. Peter which awakened faith in Jesus in nearly three thousand people at one time and added them to flock of the Church.  Scripture, the Bible, is the primary way in which we experience the voice of Jesus speaking to us today, especially so as we hear it proclaimed publicly in the Mass or other sacraments, but also in private or group reading and reflection.

             Arising out of the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, stand the seven sacraments which give public ritual expression to the person and voice of Jesus.  Of the seven sacraments, the Holy Eucharist to which numbers of our children will be admitted to full participation for the first time this weekend and next, stands as the greatest of them all.  In the Holy Eucharist through the words and voice of the priest Jesus our shepherd “spreads the table before us” as bread and wine become his very body and blood and in consuming them we experience a personal and corporate communion with him.

            This coming week as the church in the United States we are being blessed by hearing the voice of Jesus speaking to us in a special way as Pope Benedict XVI, the successor of St. Peter as chief shepherd of the Church in the name of Jesus will walk among us.

            Like my friend Peggy holding on to the voice of her beloved Jack, today we again hear our beloved Jesus’ voice and we, too, are comforted.