“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:27)

There is something both comforting and challenging in these words of Our Lord. Comforting, because He speaks of knowing us—personally and intimately, as a shepherd knows his flock. Challenging, because He assumes something about us: that we hear His voice.

But do we?

Whenever I find myself in a large gathering, I often struggle to hear. The background noise—voices overlapping, music playing, movement all around—has a way of drowning out the very people I am trying to listen to. It is almost as though I am wearing noise-canceling headphones, but with an odd twist: the noise itself is not canceled, but rather the voices I want to hear are the ones that disappear. What should be clear becomes indistinct.

In many ways, this is an image of the spiritual life.

Our Lord tells us plainly: “My sheep hear My voice.” Yet for most of us, His voice seems distant, even silent. It is not that He has ceased to speak—it is that we are surrounded by so much noise that we cannot distinguish His voice from the rest.

Consider how constant the noise is in our daily lives. We move from one sound to another without pause: televisions in the background, radios in the car, notifications on our phones, conversations layered upon conversations. Even places that once offered quiet—restaurants, waiting rooms, public spaces—are now filled with music or screens. There is almost nowhere we can go to escape it. And even when the world around us grows quiet, the noise within often remains. Our minds continue to race—replaying conversations, worrying about responsibilities, planning what comes next. Silence itself can feel unfamiliar, even uncomfortable.

And so the voice of God, which is not loud or forceful, is easily lost.

There is a difference between hearing and listening. We hear countless sounds every day, but we do not truly attend to most of them. If you sit quietly outdoors, or open a window and simply close your eyes, you begin to notice this. At first it seems like a blur of noise, but gradually distinct sounds emerge: the barking of a dog, the cry of a child, the buzzing of a bee, the chirping of birds, the distant laughter of children at play. The sounds were always there—you simply were not listening.

The same is true in conversation. We may hear someone’s words, but our attention is elsewhere. We are thinking of our response, distracted, or only half-engaged. True listening requires presence. It requires intention.

And so it is with God. It is not enough that His voice be present; we must be attentive to it.

God is always speaking. He speaks through Sacred Scripture, through the teachings of the Church, through the quiet movements of grace in our hearts. He speaks through our guardian angel, through the witness of the saints, and through the circumstances of our lives. But His voice is not like the voice of the world. It is not loud, not insistent, not overwhelming. It is, as Scripture tells us, a still, small voice.

To hear it, something must change—not in God, but in us.

We must make room.

Silence and solitude are not luxuries in the spiritual life; they are necessities. Without them, we remain immersed in a constant hum that dulls our ability to perceive anything deeper. The noise of our lives becomes like those imagined headphones—blocking out precisely the voice we most need to hear.

This does not mean withdrawing entirely from the world, but it does mean being deliberate. A few moments of silence before prayer. A walk without distractions. Turning off the constant stream of sound, even briefly. Creating space where the soul can become attentive again.

The sheep recognize the voice of the shepherd not because it is loud, but because it is familiar. They have learned it. They trust it. They follow it. So too must we learn the voice of Christ. This takes time, patience, and a willingness to be still, even when stillness feels difficult. But gradually something begins to change. The noise does not disappear entirely, but it loses its hold. And in that quiet, the voice of the Good Shepherd becomes clearer.

Our Lord’s words are not merely descriptive—they are an invitation: “My sheep hear My voice… and they follow Me.”If we wish to follow Him, we must first learn to hear Him. And if we wish to hear Him, we must be willing to step away, even briefly, from the noise that surrounds us.

Carve out time each day for silence and solitude. Even a few minutes. In that quiet, listen—not just with your ears, but with your heart. For the Shepherd is speaking.