Follow the Voice, Find the Cross
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." — John 10:27, ESV-CE
Brothers and sisters, we gather this morning on the Third Sunday after Pentecost, within the sacred Octave of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. These eight days are not merely a devotional observance. They are an extended contemplation of the very interior life of the Son of God — the Heart that burns with an infinite, inexhaustible love for every soul within the sound of my voice this morning. And it is no accident that the Gospel appointed for this Sunday is the parable of the lost sheep. The Sacred Heart is precisely the Heart of the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine and goes after the one that is lost.
Before we open the Scripture together, I want to begin with a story.
Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian whose family hid Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution during the Second World War, once described a conversation she had with her father when she was still a young child. She had been reading about the martyrs and was quietly terrified. She went to her father and said: "Papa, I am afraid I could never be strong enough to die for Jesus."
Her father listened. He did not lecture. He simply asked: "Corrie, when you and I take the train to Amsterdam, when do I give you your ticket?" She replied, "Just before we board the train, Papa." He nodded and said: "Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we will need things too. When the time comes, you will find the strength you need — right on time."
Corrie would later discover — in Ravensbrück concentration camp, watching her beloved sister Betsie die — that her father was absolutely right. The grace came when it was needed. Not before. Not a moment late. Right on time.
That is the posture we are examining this morning. Not grim resignation — but radical, courageous trust. The deliberate decision to humble ourselves before a God who sees what we cannot see, who provides at the precise moment we need it most, and who calls to us through storms we cannot navigate on our own.
This morning we will walk together through three passages of Sacred Scripture — 1 Peter 5:6-7, Luke 15:1-10, and John 10:27. The thread woven through all three is this: God is not a distant observer of your struggle. He is the Good Shepherd, whose Sacred Heart is pierced with love for you, who has already found you on His radar, and who will guide you — if you will follow His voice — all the way to the foot of the cross.
Follow the Voice. Find the Cross. Let us begin.
The Humble Posture — 1 Peter 5:6-7
In Our Epistle reading today we read:
"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:6-7
Two verses. Thirty words. And packed within them is one of the most countercultural, most demanding, and most liberating commands in all of Sacred Scripture.
Saint Peter wrote this letter to believers scattered across what is now modern Turkey — men and women living under the shadow of Roman persecution, social displacement, and grinding uncertainty about the future. These were people who knew what anxiety tasted like. And into that storm, the Prince of the Apostles writes not with sympathy alone but with a command: Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.
The phrase "mighty hand of God" is drawn directly from the Exodus narrative — the hand that parted the Red Sea, the hand that fed Israel manna in the wilderness. Peter is saying: that same hand is over you right now. The wisest, most spiritually courageous thing you can do is stop straining against it and bow beneath it. Not because God is harsh — but because He is mighty enough to carry what you simply cannot carry.
Verse 6 attaches a promise: "so that at the proper time he may exalt you." That phrase "proper time" translates the Greek word kairos — not mere chronological time, but the appointed, divinely orchestrated right moment. This is exactly what Casper ten Boom was telling his daughter at their kitchen table. God does not dispense grace ahead of schedule. He gives it at the kairos moment — and the soul that has humbled itself is perfectly positioned to receive it.
Then verse 7 gives us the oxygen that makes verse 6 survivable: "casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." The Greek word for "casting" carries the image of deliberate, forceful action — hurling something with intentionality. You are not to lay your anxiety politely beside God and hope He notices it. You are to hurl it onto Him. All of it — the anxiety about your health, your marriage, your children, your provision, what is still to come around the bend you cannot yet see. All of it — hurled upon Him. Because He cares for you.
The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches: "To pray well we must be deeply convinced of our own poverty and need, and fully persuaded that from God alone can we hope for all good things." This is the interior movement Peter commands. Humility is not weakness. It is the soul's honest recognition of its own poverty standing before a God of infinite provision. Saint Augustine, who knew the wilderness of a wandering soul better than most, said it simply: "Thou madest us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee."
Now hear this as a sacramental reality. The Sacrament of Penance — Holy Confession — is the Church's appointed place of this very act of humility. When you kneel before a confessor, you are doing precisely what Peter commands. You are humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God. You are casting the full weight of your sin, your guilt, and your shame upon the One who says: He cares for you. The confessional is not a courtroom in which God prosecutes you. It is the place where the mighty hand of God receives you — and the grace of absolution is the kairos moment when He lifts you up.
Where in your life are you still gripping the controls? 1 Peter 5:6-7 does not invite you to feel differently before you act. It commands you to act. Humble yourself. Cast. Release. Because He cares for you — and that is enough ground to stand on.
The Shepherd Who Seeks — Luke 15:1-10 and the Sacred Heart
In the Gospel reading for today we read:
"Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.' So he told them this parable: 'What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost." Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost." Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.'"
What the Pharisees intended as an accusation — "This man receives sinners and eats with them" — Our Lord received as a plain description of His mission. Yes. That is precisely what He does. And rather than defending Himself, He answers with parables — because parables reach places in the human heart that arguments cannot penetrate.
We are within the Octave of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and this parable is not simply a pleasant illustration of divine mercy in the abstract. It is a window into the Sacred Heart itself. It is Our Lord opening His chest and showing us what beats there — the Heart that cannot rest while even one sheep remains lost, that does not calculate the cost of the search, that leaves comfort to pursue the wandering soul until He finds it.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Our Lord revealed the great devotion to His Sacred Heart, recorded among His promises: "I will be their secure refuge in life and at the hour of death." And to those who receive Holy Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays: "My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in that last moment." This is the Shepherd promising to carry His sheep all the way home — not only in the easy seasons, but through the final dark valley as well.
Now look carefully at what happens when the Shepherd finds the lost sheep. He does not arrive with a lecture on the foolishness of wandering. He lays it on his shoulders — rejoicing. The lost sheep is not driven home by guilt. It is carried home on the Shepherd's own shoulders.
This is the Sacrament of Penance. The Baltimore Catechism defines it simply: "The Sacrament of Penance is the Sacrament by which sins committed after Baptism are forgiven through the absolution of the priest." But understand what that absolution truly is — it is the moment the Good Shepherd lays you on His shoulders rejoicing. It is not a legal transaction. It is a reunion, and heaven itself erupts in celebration at that moment. The Catechism of the Council of Trent puts it plainly: "The holy Fathers have rightly called Penance a second plank of rescue after the shipwreck of sin." You are not too far out to sea. The Shepherd has found you. He is ready to lift you onto His shoulders.
Notice also the woman with the ten coins. She does not sit and wait. She lights a lamp, sweeps the entire house, and searches diligently until she finds what was lost. This is the Sacred Heart at work in your soul — through every grace that crosses your path, through every sermon that reaches you, through every moment of quiet when the Voice of God finds a crack through the noise of daily life to call you home. He is not passive. He is searching. He has been searching for you longer than you have been running from Him.
Are there souls here this morning who have drifted from Confession — who have wandered like a sheep that looked up one day and could no longer hear the Shepherd's voice clearly? The Sacred Heart speaks to you through every word of this parable: I have found you. Come home. The confessional door is open. The Shepherd is not waiting with condemnation. He is waiting with His shoulders ready and rejoicing already forming on His lips.
Learning to Follow the Voice
I want to tell you a true story. And I believe it will make the words of John 10:27 permanently unforgettable.
David Gibbs, a Christian attorney who spent his career defending religious liberty in American courts, was traveling as a passenger in a small plane over the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, bound for Anchorage. He was not the pilot. And somewhere over that vast, storm-swept wilderness, the unthinkable happened. The pilot lost consciousness. In an instant, David and his companion were alone in a small aircraft, flying blind through a raging storm, and neither of them knew how to fly.
His companion seized the radio and called for help. By the mercy of God, they were connected to the emergency tower in Anchorage. A voice came through — calm, steady, authoritative.
"I have found you on the radar. If you want me to get you home safely, you must promise to obey my voice. You cannot see me, but I can see you. If you do not do what I say, you will not make it."
The voice warned them of a mountain four minutes ahead — entirely invisible in the storm. David obeyed. The plane turned. The mountain passed somewhere in the darkness behind them. Then the voice said: "Do not look outside at the storm. Pay attention only to my voice. If you watch the storm, you will die. But if you listen to me, I will take you through it."
An hour and a half. In a raging storm. Simply obeying the voice. And as the plane began its final approach, the voice gave one last instruction: "At the foot of the runway, there are lights shaped like a cross. The cross is the way home."
As the plane broke through the last of the storm clouds, there they were — runway lights in the unmistakable shape of a cross. The plane touched down safely. They were alive. Home. And the voice in the tower said quietly: "Thank you for listening. I watch them crash and burn all the time, because they will not follow my voice."
Brothers and sisters — this is a living parable of John 10:27: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
He has found you on the radar. He knows your exact coordinates — your altitude, your heading, the mountain you have not yet seen approaching through the storm ahead. He sees what you cannot see. And He is not silent. Anxiety is the soul fixated on watching the storm — every faculty consumed with calculating the chaos. But the Shepherd says: hear My voice. Turn your eyes away from the weather and your ears toward the One who holds the radar.
And then — the cross. At the foot of the runway: lights shaped like a cross. The cross is always the way home.
In the Gospel of Saint John, chapter 19, verse 34: "One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out." The Fathers of the Church have always understood this as the birth of the sacraments from the pierced Heart of Christ — blood for the Eucharist, water for Baptism and Penance, flowing from the opened Sacred Heart as from a single inexhaustible fountain. The Shepherd does not guide you through the storm simply so that you can land in a comfortable life. He guides you through the turbulence so that He can feed you with Himself.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard, the great Apostle of the Eucharist, wrote: "Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the most tender of friends with souls who seek to please Him. Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven." The voice that guided you through the storm brings you at last to the altar — where the Good Shepherd gives Himself entirely to you, where the Heart that searched for you now feeds you.
This is why the devotion of the Nine First Fridays is not merely a pious practice for the especially devout. It is a sustained, sacramental act of following the Shepherd's voice — nine months of choosing, in the teeth of whatever storm surrounds your life, to come to this altar and receive the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. Our Lord promised Saint Margaret Mary: "My all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays the grace of final perseverance — they shall not die under My displeasure. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in that last moment."
There is no storm through which He will not guide you. There is no final dark valley through which He will not carry you. He has promised. And the cross at the end of the runway will be standing exactly where He said it would be.
The Cross at the End of the Runway
This is where we land this morning.
Let me gather the threads one final time.
Saint Peter says: Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. The posture God calls you to is not spiritual perfection arrived at before you dare approach Him. It is humility — the deliberate, courageous decision to bow beneath the hand that holds all things, and to hurl every anxiety onto the One who bears for you a personal, unrelenting, Sacred-Heart love. The confessional is where that humility becomes a sacramental reality.
Our Lord says in Luke 15 that there is a Shepherd who does not wait for wandering sheep to find their own way home. He leaves the ninety-nine. He searches without calculation. He goes until He finds. And when He finds, He does not arrive with condemnation — He arrives rejoicing, lays the found sheep on His own shoulders, and carries it home while heaven breaks open in celebration. This is the Sacrament of Penance. And the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Heart of that Shepherd, pierced with love for you, burning with the desire to find you and bring you home.
And Jesus says in John 10:27: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. He is speaking. He has already found you on the radar. The question before you this morning is not whether the Voice is calling. It is whether you are listening — and whether you are willing to follow it through the storm, even when you cannot see clearly through the clouds.
He will guide you. And at the end of the runway, the cross will be standing exactly where He said it would be — the cross from whose pierced Heart flowed the blood of the Eucharist and the water of absolution. The cross that is always the way home.
I make two concrete invitations this morning — both sacramental, both grounded in the promises of the Sacred Heart.
First: if you have been away from Confession — if you are the sheep who looked up and found yourself unable to hear the Shepherd's voice clearly — hear the Sacred Heart speaking to you now: I have found you. I am not waiting with a rebuke. I am waiting with My shoulders ready. Make an examination of conscience this week. Come to Confession. Do not let another month pass in the wilderness when the Shepherd is standing ready at the confessional door with all the mercy of His Sacred Heart open toward you.
Second: if you have never made the Nine First Fridays, I invite you to begin. Receive Holy Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays in honor of the Sacred Heart, in reparation for sin, and in trust of His promise. Our Lord pledged to Saint Margaret Mary: "My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in that last moment." There is no safer place to land in the final storm than in the Heart from which every sacramental grace has always flowed.
Follow the Voice. Find the Cross. The cross is always the way home.-F.D.