“Can you hear me now?” - so asked the test man in the popular Verizon Wireless TV ad, as he roamed through the country to test the reliability of that company’s network.
In the 1st reading, that question could very have been in the Lord’s mind each time He called out Samuel’s name and the young man mistakenly thought it was Eli calling him. On the third time Samuel made this same mistake, Eli realized it was the Lord calling the youth, so he advised him to say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” And when indeed the Lord called Samuel again, the youth heeded Eli’s advice. The first reading ends with a description of the grace that came to Samuel from hearing the Lord: “Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him, not permitting any word of his to be without effect.”
As this narrative illustrates, the Lord calls us, not once, but constantly, to a dialogue, to an ever-deepening communion of life and love with Him. Do we hear the Lord’s call to us, perhaps to pray, to serve, to reconcile, to minister to the needy? Hearing the Lord’s call is a process that begins with awareness that there is a call. But awareness must be followed by an understanding of who is speaking to us. Samuel needed Eli’s help to discern that it was the Lord who was calling. In our case, we have a much superior spiritual guide than Eli - the Holy Spirit Himself – who reveals God to us. With confirmation that the Lord indeed is speaking to us, the final step in the process is to take action to accept and to heed His call- to do His will.
In the gospel, John the Baptist’s two disciples must have been intrigued when their master pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God. The day before, John had a fuller description of Jesus and His baptism, when the forerunner called Him, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” Jn 1:29. Surely, the two disciples must not have understood the paschal connotation of that name as applied to Jesus at that particular moment. In their curiosity, they followed Jesus, who in turn asked them, “what are you looking for?” Their answer was, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” The Lord responded with an invitation, “Come and you will see.” The disciples readily accepted the Lord’s invitation, staying with Him that day at His home. What did they see there? Whom did they find? Andrew supplies the answer when he announced to his brother Simon, “We have found the Messiah!”
Although the call in the gospel narrative used the visual sense compared to the auditory sense in the 1st reading, the same response process applied. The first was awareness, with John pointing out Jesus to his disciples as the Lamb of God. The second was understanding, a grace that was given when the disciples spent the day with Jesus at His home. The third was action, expressed in the disciples’ acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah, as demonstrated by Andrew’s testimony to his brother Simon.
What should we do to keep ourselves open to the Lord’s call? We will hear the Lord’s voice, feel His presence and see His glory when we keep our body from immorality, preserving it as a holy member of Christ, a holy temple of the Holy Spirit. Our certainty lies in the Lord’s promise: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God” Mt 5:8. Our obedience to His will brings us into an intimate communion with His Person. “Whoever is joined to Christ becomes one Spirit with Him.” United with His fullness, we receive grace upon grace (Jn 1:16), which He commands us to freely share with others.
Jesus provides us with the perfect model for stewardship of God’s grace. The Hebrew word for lamb is “talia”, which could also mean servant. In obedience to His Father’s will, Jesus, the Shepherd of all, becomes the Passover Lamb. In obedience to His Father’s will, Jesus, the Son of God, becomes the Servant of all. Why? So that through His Cross, the world may freely receive God’s grace of love and mercy. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Jesus, the Messiah!
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