2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: 18th January, 2015
1 Sam 3: 3b-10,19 ; 1 Cor 6: 13c-15a, 17-20 ; Jn 1: 35-42
The readings today remind us of our calling in our day to day living as disciples of Christ.
The first reading from the life of Samuel highlights the inspiration we have received. Inspiration is from within. It requires that we are attentive in order that we do not miss it. A friend of mine recently resigned his job and opted another underpaid job. I asked him why. And he said that he felt that the former job was keeping him away from the Church, eating away his Sundays and a great portion of even the other days. I asked him how he did come to decide on such a thing. And he said, 'I just felt it'. It is significant to note that he very recently became a Catholic, inspite of a strong resistance from the rest of his family.
The Gospel extends the invitation to come and see. The fact that we are inspired is undeniable, for every one of us is guided and led by the Spirit who resides within us (as the Second reading reminds us). But the crucial element is for us to 'see'... to take note of... to understand what we are inspired about. The invitation is to behold the message from the Lord, to make our contact with the Lord an experience and not just an appointment.
The call to be a Christian is not a call of an individual, it is a call to be a communion of persons, to be an institution. It is a call to form One Body with the Lord - united with the brothers and sisters in love, instituted into a sign of hope to every one around who is looking out for something to hold on to in life. The world today may appear so critical about Christians, but it is only an expression of the expectations they have of us: that as one family of hope filled people, one institution of Christ filled persons, we radiate the joy that the humanity stands in need of.