The Objectivity of Morality and the Voice of Conscience

Friends, on this Fourth Sunday of Easter, we have this marvelous, short but very punchy reading from the Gospel of John: Jesus referring to himself as the good shepherd. This is a remarkably apt metaphor for how God reaches out to us—knows us personally—and how we are able to discern and follow his voice. But how do we hear the voice of the shepherd? In a lot of ways—but I wonder if the clearest way isn’t through the conscience, which John Henry Newman called the aboriginal Vicar of Christ in the soul.