First Reading
1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19
Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was. The Lord called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.” Samuel ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.” “I did not call you, ” Eli said. “Go back to sleep.” So he went back to sleep. Again the Lord called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli. “Here I am, ” he said. “You called me.” But Eli answered, “I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep.” At that time Samuel was not familiar with the Lord, because the Lord had not revealed anything to him as yet. The Lord called Samuel again, for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, “Here I am. You called me.” Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the youth. So he said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the Lord came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Samuel grew up, and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.
Second Reading
1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20
Brothers and sisters: The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body; God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him. Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.
Gospel Cycle Cycle B
John 1:35-42
John was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” – which translated means Teacher -, “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come, and you will see.” So they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” – which is translated Christ -. Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas” – which is translated Peter.
We can hear the Lord calling to each of us today! He called Samuel and He called the first followers of Jesus—and He is calling us as well. Are we listening?
Often we wonder how He speaks to us. He never seems to speak directly—even though we may know of others to whom He seems to speak directly. We can hear in the stories of Samuel and of the first followers of Jesus that they also were not so clear about being called in the beginning. Someone had to point it out to them.
But often the Lord does speak directly to us and we do not know it. We sometimes need someone to point it out to us. For many of us, it is other family members or members of our religious community or of our parish—or sometimes just a complete stranger.
In the story of Samuel, the young Samuel keeps hearing the voice of God and thinks that it is someone else call him. We do that same thing: we sense an attraction to something, we feel a need to do something, we are given a special commission at times—and so often we never think that this might be God calling us. Of course we have to be careful of identifying everything that we want to do with a direct call of God—but so often we are at the other extreme: God seems not present in our world.
In the Gospel we can also identify with going about our own work and not wanting to hear that someone might call us to something else. We don’t want to think that every time someone interrupts us, it might be God. But it might be….
So we are invited today to reflect on our own lives as we hear these stories in the lives of others. Do we ever think that God is actually calling us in the daily events of our lives? Do we think that many of the things that we do might just be in response to His call? Do we look for the divine in the daily elements of our lives?
In our liturgical year we are just getting into “ordinary” time and we need to think that God calls us in the ordinary events of our lives.
Let us ask for eyes of faith that really look for God each day!