“I WILL GIVE YOU SHEPHERDS”
Forming Priests for the New Evangelization
How to Hear the
Shepherd’s Voice
Fr. John Vandenakker, CC
T
hose called to the priesthood of Jesus are called
to be shepherds, in the image of Christ the Good
Shepherd. But becoming a shepherd of God’s people
does not mean one stops being a sheep oneself.
In fact, if one does not know how to be a
good sheep (disciple of the Lord), then one
will not know how to be a good shepherd.
And it all starts with the ability to listen and
hear the “voice” of the Lord.
The ability to “recognize” the voice of
the Lord is something that all Christians
must learn. It is not innate. Just as Eli taught
young Samuel in the temple at Shiloh how
to respond when Yahweh called to him in
the night—“Speak Lord, your servant is listening” (cf. 1 Sm 3:9)—so, too, all disciples
must learn how to properly discern what
it is the Lord is trying to tell them through
prayer and the circumstances of life.
We know that most of what constitutes
God’s will for us has already been revealed
in Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and taught
by the Magisterium. As Jesus said to the
rich young man, “If you wish to enter into
life, keep the commandments” (Mt 19:17).
But there is much more to being a disciple
of the Lord than simply “keeping” commandments. God wants to daily give us
the grace and power we need for Christian
living and communicate his “Now” word
to us, for the sake of our own sanctification
and that of the world.
In order to really “hear” what it is the
Lord wants to communicate to us (i.e.,
how he wants to lead us), whether per-
sonally or corporately, we must be rooted he wants to lead it! The same goes for
in prayer. Prayer can take many different parish communities that priests will one
forms—contemplation, worsh