God called Samuel three times during his sleep in today’s first reading for Mass. Samuel was listening, but he wasn’t sure who called him. Eventually Eli understood what was happening to Samuel and he told him what to do:
“Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”
Eli knew how to listen to God’s voice, so he taught Samuel how to listen to God’s voice too. The question is – do we teach our children and grandchildren how to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit? Or is the extent of our faith sharing mostly the external aspects of how we practice our religion? Children listen to what we teach them, but they actually believe our words, because of how we live them. Our witness to the Catholic faith will not be passed on to our children, if we lack credibility. Not only that, but everyone else who knows us will disregard our words too, if we fail to live them out in our lives.
Many people fail to become a Christian or a Catholic because of the bad witness to the faith they have seen in others. A bad witness does even more harm than no witness at all, whether that is within the structure of the church itself, or within our own family. The priests who were convicted of the sexual abuse of minors, did much more damage to the Catholic faith than they would have, if they had never become a priest to begin with.
Samuel listened to Eli because he respected him and trusted that what he said about God was true. Eli had a history with Samuel, of being a man of integrity. His words carried weight.
This same situation happened twice in today’s gospel. Andrew and the other disciple with him, listened to John the Baptist, whom they respected and looked up to, when John said: “Behold, the Lamb of God,” as Jesus was walking by. They took him at his word without question, and immediately followed after Jesus.
Then, toward the end of the gospel, Andrew left where Jesus was staying, and went to find his brother, Simon (Peter). He told Simon that they had found the Messiah, and Simon believed him. That is an amazing act of faith, in and of itself. For hundreds of years, the Jewish people had been expecting the Messiah, but Simon accepted without question that Andrew believed he had found him. To anyone else, it might have sounded like a tall tale, but Simon believed him. Andrew must have been a man of integrity and deep faith, because Simon trusted what he said enough to drop everything he was doing and go meet Jesus.
Would we do the same thing that Samuel, Andrew and Simon Peter did, if we found ourselves in a similar circumstance? It’s easy to think so. But, what if someone said it was the end of the world and that Jesus had been spotted, returning to earth just like it was predicted for thousands of years in the bible? Wouldn’t you be a little skeptical? We’ve had plenty of false prophets in our day and age, that’s for sure.
It was such an awesome act of faith that Eli believed that God was calling Samuel in his sleep. How many of us ever sit down and listen to other people’s dreams or unusual spiritual occurrences, without judgment?
Another thing that would be easy to overlook in the second reading for Mass today is this verse:
“Whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him.”
Did you notice Samuel was sleeping in front of the tabernacle when God spoke to him, in the first reading today? He was obviously a faith filled man, who was very much in tune with God, even on a subconscious level. One sure sign of his holiness is found in the last verse of the first reading, when it said:
“Samuel grew up, and the Lord was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.”
Samuel grew up to be a man of integrity and people listened to him and respected what he said.
Even though this story is located in the old testament, Samuel really sets the example for us, on how to listen to Jesus better and become holy ourselves. Samuel spent a lot of time before the tabernacle praying. That is why he was so close to God, and could hear his voice calling him in his sleep. Eucharistic adoration does the same thing for us. It changes us slowly over a period of time, to become more and more like Christ. We become like the one we are with.
Parents tell their children all the time to choose their friends wisely, because they will become like the people they hang out with. The same is true for us. Our words become credible when our credibility comes from Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and when his life is reflected in our own. We all have a need to spend more time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and less time on secular things, so that when people look at us, they see Jesus. And, when people listen to us – they can hear Jesus.
