Second Sunday of the Year 2009

Reflection for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time…

A Thought for the day…

On Call…

A young man named George left school to work for a large well-known international company. He was very intelligent and had a great career ahead of him.  However, over the next few years he felt that he might have a call to the priesthood.  A couple of his close friends had asked him about this. Each time he put it out of his head but the idea persisted. Finally when he was 23 he decided to give it a try and entered the seminary not at all sure if it were his true calling. 30 years later he is still a priest and quite content with the choice he had made.
  
George is a bit like Samuel in the first reading today.   Three times he heard the call of God and it was only after the third call, with the help of Eli that he responded to the call of God.

And there is a parallel in the gospel today in the invitation of Jesus:  “Come and see?” There is no forcing here, it is an invitation on the part of Jesus. Not only did they spend the rest of that day with him but also obviously they found him so fascinating that they spent the rest of their lives following him.

The lesson is that our God is a very patient God. No matter how often we don’t hear or resist his call he keeps on calling us, never giving up on us, irrespective of how we may have lived our lives.

The pattern of God’s ways seems to be that people bring others to Jesus, who in turn bring others also to Jesus.  Maybe we can ask ourselves, who brought us to Jesus – maybe our parents, teachers, friends etc?  However it is not enough to keep the faith – we are asked to pass it on to others.

Maybe, just maybe God is calling you to do something special… a priest? … a sister or brother?… a lay missionary?… or whatever.  Take a look at our Vocations page.

– Fr Jim Kirstein SMA
Blackrock Road, Cork