2024-01-12 01:58:44
What are you looking for?
Dear brothers, peace and good.
We have left behind the liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas, and ordinary time welcomes us, which is not boring. Everything we have experienced so far can help us face this period that runs until Ash Wednesday, this year, on February 14.
Ordinary time begins with the story of a young man who was always in the temple, close to the things of God. We can say that “he knew it all.” He would know the terrain, he would know where everything was, he would have gone to hundreds of ceremonies, he would have seen many people praying… But he did not know the Lord, yet. His Word had not been revealed to her. He had not had a personal encounter with God.
Because being a Christian is a personal calling. It’s not signing up for something. It is not being a member of a party, or having a soccer team card. It is not an ideology. Nor something for a specific time. It is a style that spans a lifetime, without vacations or breaks. Day and night, at work and at leisure. Full time.
Samuel has a hard time recognizing the call. It is also difficult for us today to know what God wants from me. It was not often that the Lord revealed Himself directly. Therefore, Samuel cannot find the origin of the voice by himself. Neither can Andrew and the beloved disciple discover Who is the only true Master. “Guides” who have had that experience are necessary. And we are not talking regarding talks, or courses, or prayer techniques or books on the essence of God. It is the word of people who have walked those paths and help others walk along them. Teachers of life, people with “experience of God”. That they know what they are saying. Because they have already lived it. Do I have a spiritual director who helps me in this search, for example?
Samuel’s experience happens at night. When “the lamp of God was still burning.” The lamp was lit at night (Ex 27, 20-21; Lev 24, 3). At night, in silence, the noise of things stops, the senses of the body rest and those of the soul are triggered. God can reveal himself. Do we need to remember that we need silence to listen to the Lord? Because silence is difficult for us, we fill it with many things, with a lot of noise.
And the Apostle Paul’s invitation to take care of the body is not trivial. “You do not own yourselves, because God has purchased you by paying a price for you.” A very big price. That of the life of his own Son. And the questions that Paul asks the Corinthians are very current. Because we live in a world in which the body has been denatured, has become a commodity, and modesty has been lost, due to the “hypersexualization” of society. Have we forgotten that our bodies “are members of Christ”? “Have you not heard that you are temples of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you and which you have received from God?” He lives in us, we belong to him, that is why we should flee from all immorality. Let it be noted that we are Christians.
In the Gospel we see two disciples of John who want to search. “What are you looking for?” Jesus asks them. They wanted to know where Christ lived. They are willing to leave their comfort zone to find the Messiah. They already had a teacher, John the Baptist, but they were looking for the Master, the definitive one. A good example for us, those of us who find it difficult to get out of bed, to go to Mass, from our usual group, from our usual prayers… And we complain that we do not find the Lord. Sometimes it takes an effort to see it. And trust the word of those who know more regarding this.
The Gospel says that they stayed all day. Actually, it seems to me that they stayed more than a day. That encounter with Jesus changed their lives forever. They walked with him, they saw how he spoke, how he preached, how he related to people, and the “called ones” became “callers.” That was the task of Eli, of John the Baptist, of the first disciples… “We have found the Messiah,” and they took Peter to Jesus.
Maybe we can say something more. If a Christian does not talk regarding his experience of the Messiah, if he does not share with other brothers his encounter with Christ, what he has learned following spending a day with Him, if he has not felt how he has received a call to evangelize… Well, we are not Christians altogether. We have to continue growing as believers.
We hear from Samuel’s lips “Speak, your servant is listening.” The psalm has reinforced that disposition, with “here I am, Lord, to do your will.” They are good messages for those who really want to pray. We should think that every prayer we address to God asking Him for anything should necessarily be accompanied by this complement. Because praying is not just waiting for God to fix our things, but putting ourselves in his hands, so that he can fix them. It is a good time to ask ourselves if we have put ourselves within reach of Jesus, if we have heard the Word and have spent time responding to it. Because, at worst, God is waiting for our response to his question.
And one more detail. The Lord appeared to Samuel when he was already in the temple. And he calls the first disciples when they were already disciples of the Baptist. Which reminds us that we must update our response to the Lord every day. God continues calling, and our response must be updated as well.
And, at the end, we see how Jesus gives Peter a new name. It is the new name by which Christ was going to know him. The mission is implicit in the name. We also have our own name before the Lord. He knows us and calls us by that exclusive name when he calls us to our Christian vocation. He invites us, like Samuel, to follow him as Christians. And, as Fr. Fernando Armellini, “The vocation has not been revealed to us through dreams and visions but rather we discover it by looking within ourselves, listening to the word of the Lord that is heard, not seen, that manifests itself in events and speaks through of the angels who put us at our side: the brothers in charge of interpreting their thoughts and will for us.”
Finally, let us emphasize that God the Father and Jesus Christ himself always need full-time collaborators to carry out their task. They want you to participate. When there are so many things to do in the Church and in the world, and when there are so many things that are not done, might it not be that we have put on blinders and earplugs, so as not to see or hear, so as not to complicate our lives with the things of the Father? It’s a good time to react. God calls you. What are you going to answer?
Your brother in faith, Alejandro, CMF
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#Gospel #Reflection #Homily #Sunday #January
