SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
14 JANUARY 2018
When we
encounter Samuel in today’s first reading, he is a young child sleeping in the
Temple in Shiloh. Months before, his
mother, Hannah, had come to this same Temple in absolute anguish. She and her husband had not been able to
conceive a child. When the priest Eli
heard her crying out her pain to the Lord, he thought she was drunk. When he understood what was happening, he
sent her home with the confidence that she and her husband would conceive a
child. On her way home, she made a
promise. If the Lord would bless them
with a child, she would dedicate him to the Lord. Hannah kept her promise and brought him to
live at the Temple, trusting that Eli would form him and help him understand God’s
plan for him.
In a sense,
Hannah becomes a model for all parents.
In gratitude for the gift of a child, parents bring their child to the
waters of Baptism. They promise to do
what Eli had done for Samuel – to raise their child in the ways of faith and to
teach the child to listen carefully to the Lord calling them to follow him. As parents learn, the process of teaching
children in the ways of faith is not always easy. It took Eli three times before he understood
that the Lord was calling Samuel to become one of the greatest prophets of ancient
Israel. In the Gospel, John the Baptist
clearly points out the identity of Jesus as the Lamb of God. However, it takes the rest of the Gospel for
Andrew and Simon Peter to understand what that means. Eventually, they will learn that Jesus is the
gentle lamb led to slaughter. They will
see him as the suffering servant of Isaiah.
They will understand that this lamb will destroy evil and death.
That is why
it is so important to gather here every Sunday to listen to the Word of
God. The Lord speaks to us just as
surely as he spoke to Samuel, or just as surely as Jesus spoke to his first
disciples and invited them to stay with him.
We stay with him and abide with him as he feeds us with his Body and
Blood at this Mass. Through Baptism, he
has called every one of us to live a life of holiness, a life that will
eventually make us saints. As we listen,
we guide our children to listen carefully also.
In time, with our guidance, they will respond.
Boys and girls,
you are never too young to listen to the Lord as he calls you in specific ways
to live your baptism. My guess is that
most of you are being called to enter into the vocation of marriage. Our parish team is working now to prepare a
number of young couples for the Sacrament of Matrimony. Some of you will dedicate yourselves to
serving the Lord in the single life.
Some of you are being called to serve the Lord as priests or
religious. Our parish is blessed with two
young men who are pursuing the vocation of priesthood and have returned to the
seminary to continue to listen. Two
young women are being formed into the religious life with the Sisters of Saint
Francis in the convent across from Marian High School.
The Lord
will continue to speak to us through his Word every Sunday in our journey
through Ordinary Time. In listening, the
parish offers several opportunities to hear him more directly. One of those ways is the weekend retreat, Christ Renews His Parish. The women’s retreat is scheduled for the
first weekend in February, and the men’s will be the next weekend. Over the years, many members of our parish
have benefitted from this retreat, which brings them closer to Jesus Christ,
connects them in a more intimate way with other members of the parish, and
helps them to renew the parish in some remarkable ways. Members of this retreat would love to talk to
you after Mass. Like the original
disciples of Jesus who remember exactly the time (4:00) when they encountered
the Lord, these ordinary men and women remember how the retreat touched
them. Come and see! Talk to them.
You too can be changed in ways that might surprise you!
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