Whose Voice Are You Listening To?

The Good Shepherd Photograph by Waiting For The Word

Welcome to Uncommon Catholic!

Most Thursday posts will contain a reflection on the scripture readings and celebrations for mass the following Sunday.

Reading I: Acts 13:14, 43-52
Responsorial Psalm: 100:1-2, 3, 5
Reading II: Revelation 7:9, 14b-17
Gospel: John 10:27-30

This weekend, we will celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday. In the Gospel from John, Jesus says,

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

People throughout the United States can listen to a multitude of voices. The Internet can provide almost any point of view that a person chooses to search for. One can’t help but be drawn to the person who is the loudest. One can be fooled into believing the advertising message that’s endlessly repeated.

Some people’s actions are so loud, you can’t recall their words.

Millions of people watched and listened to media coverage of the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday. People listened to a narrative of pain, suffering, anguish, disbelief.

Many people listened to their own voices and the voices of loved ones as they asked: How and why did this happen? Who would do this? Many were overwhelmed.

Some people who spent time reflecting, meditating or praying might have heard a voice that asked: What now?

Jesus continues, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

In the time of Christ, shepherds would often leave their sheep in a gated area with other herds of sheep. The shepherd knew his sheep by sight. The sound of the shepherd’s voice was sufficient to gather the sheep.

Whose voice are you listening to?

Questions for further discussion, conversation on today’s Gospel

1. How do you take time to listen to the voice of Jesus?
2. What do you do to make sure you are listening to or witnessing God in your life?

We welcome your insights and invite you to join a conversation on today’s readings. Please leave a comment or send an email to Joe Mueller.

Catching Crawdads: How A Random Family Story Connected My Son With A Grandfather He Never Knew

For the past three or four years, my youngest son, now 10, displayed a passion for catching crawdads. My puzzled wife and asked if I caught crawdads when I was a kid.

Never.

I had some idea of what motivated him to pick up the first one. It was a late summer afternoon and he was playing in a creek at Fenton City Park during a planned reunion of his classmates before school. He picked up a crawdad from the water to show his buddies–and impress a few of the girls. In the blink of an eye it pinched him, he screamed and dropped it.

The crawdad  obsession persisted. There are hunters and fishermen on my side of the family. My son wanted and received a crawdad trap last Christmas. During the following spring, summer and early fall, we went crawdad catching almost every weekend. Since the St. Louis metropolitan area had one of its wettest years on record in 2009, the creek was always full of water and crawdads were plentiful. He had 35 in his cage one day. My Blackberry, digital camera and Flip camera are filled with photos of my son holding his prized catches. Search for crawdad on YouTube and he will give you a synopsis of each video.

A family gathering last week uncovered the crawdad connection. One of my father’s cousins flew in from his winter home in Florida for my uncle’s funeral. My father, who died in 1995, and this cousin always played together growing up. I spent an hour talking with him about my father.

“I remember how we would take the Chippewa Avenue bus out to the end of the line,” he explained to me and my son during the funeral luncheon. “We would walk through a tunnel to this creek and your father would have his own crawdad trap.”

My son’s eyes widened and fixed his attention on an adventure that took place almost 70 years ago by a grandfather he never knew.

“We would get liver from the butcher shop and drop it down on strings in the water and in the trap,” my father’s cousin explained. “We would end up with a whole bag full of crawdads. We would bring them home on the bus back to south St. Louis.”

But what would you do with them, my wife asked.

“We brought them home and my aunt would fry them up for dinner,” he said.

My wife’s eyes squinted and jaw dropped.

My son’s expression was one of admiration and peace.

He heard a first-hand account of a crawdad-catching adventure by his grandfather, who died four years before he was born. previous knowledge of his grandfather was from photographs and brief glimpses in home videos. But this story connected my son to his grandfather. An untimely death had brought a family together. A decades-old childhood story gave a child a glimpse of the spirit and character of a grandfather he never knew.

My wife said that if my father were alive, he’d probably spend many summer afternoons in the creek with is grandson. (She never allows my son to bring crawdads home. He even called the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for information to convince his mother that crawdads could be eaten if she fried them.)

Stories help us throughout life’s journeys. Jesus used parables to teach lessons. Our lives are busy, but we must take time to listen and understand the stories. They may bring us peace, knowledge or understanding.

I now know where my son got his passion for catching crawdads. May you hear a story in this new year that will enlighten, entertain or bring you peace.