2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024
1 Sam 3:3-10, 19; 1Cor 6:13-15, 17-20; John 1:35-42
Some friends of mine began their family with a boy named Samuel, and then a girl whom they called Martha. I wondered if they hoped that Martha would minister to them after Samuel had woken them three times in the night.
Samuel is called by the Lord, but doesn’t know the source of the call, and so turns to Eli: “Here I am, since you called me”. (You have to feel sorry for Eli, an old man, trying to get some sleep, and being continually woken up by this pesky brat.) It takes time for Eli to understand, but at length he realises that the call is coming from God.
What has this episode to say to us? Firstly, God calls us, each one of us, perhaps more often than we realise. He nudges us in a certain direction, gives us hints, awakens our conscience, sometimes gives us signs of His love which should arouse our gratitude. Sometimes, we cannot interpret these nudges for ourselves: at such times we may need a friend, an adviser, even a spiritual director, who can help us with that interpretation. We shouldn’t treat them as a guru, hanging on every word they say, but we can often receive helpful advice from someone with an element of experience and wisdom, as Eli had experience and wisdom in recognising the things of God.
Can we, can you, sometimes fulfil that role for others? It is not a matter of being a busybody, poking our nose into other people’s lives, or believing that we have the answer to other people’s questions: rather, it is having the ability to listen, the patience to ponder, and the gumption to recognise a need and to offer a suggestion, without attempting to foist our own opinion onto anybody.
In order to do that, we need, like Eli, to have a friendship with God developed through times of prayer and reflection. We need too some experience of life, so that we are not delivering airy platitudes. We need, as Pope Francis puts it, to live with the smell of the sheep, and this applies to lay people as well as to priests and religious. All of us, all of you, are both sheep and shepherds. We need the wisdom to let ourselves be guided, but there will also be situations in which we have the wisdom and experience to guide others.
God had a particular vocation in mind for Samuel, as He has a particular vocation for each of us. I would like to mention the specific vocation to priesthood or consecrated life, which God has, I suspect, for more people than are aware of it. From talking to a number of younger people, both men and women, I have the feeling that some are looking for something close to cast iron certainty. It is as if they won’t take the risk unless Jesus appears to them, or sends His Mother, to say “You definitely have a vocation to whatever it may be”.
It doesn’t work like that. We have to go with the balance of probabilities. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, is alleged to have said that there is nothing certain in life except death and taxes, and there is some truth in that. Anyone who is waiting for absolute certainty about priesthood or consecrated life will wait for ever, and will wait in vain. You have to follow hints and nudges.
Personally, I recall three things which suggested to me that I ought to take seriously the possibility of a vocation to priesthood; three nudges which came in relatively close succession. Firstly, as I was on the point of leaving school, my headmaster, not a Catholic, asked me if I was thinking of becoming a priest. Secondly, a parishioner of my own parish told me that a priest from another parish whom I knew reasonably well, had asked him the same question about me. Thirdly, after I had left school and was working, prior to going to university, I developed a habit, out of nowhere, of dropping in to the Cathedral on my way back to work during my dinner hour to visit the Blessed Sacrament, where I began to feel strongly that this was something which I ought to consider: no certainty, just the balance of probabilities.
We see something similar in the call of the first disciples. John the Baptist points them in the direction of Jesus. They spend time with Him, as I spent time before the Blessed Sacrament. Subsequently, Andrew brings his brother along, and probably John Barzebedee brought his brother James. Thus, seeds are sown, so that when later Jesus spoke to them at the lakeside, they were ready to follow.
Finally, three prayers from today’s readings which I would commend for your use: “Here I am, since you called me”, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening”, “Here I am. I come to do your will”.
