The source of true authority

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 13, 2026 - 1 Samuel 2:1,4-8; Mark 1:21-28

Eli is too fast to judge Hannah... what permits him to do that? Hannah points out to him that he need not be true merely because he is in authority... nor is it taken for granted that he is better because of that same fact. Eli was wrong and Hannah was there standing tall in her total fidelity to God who had mercy on her. 

Hannah immediately makes an impression on Eli's mind when she explains herself and her grief. He recognises immediately his mistake in judgement and blesses her with truly edifying words... a sign of a person of God. Just because he was the priest in the Temple, nothing warrants that he would always be right - that kind of a claim would be an abuse of authority! 

One way of thinking about authority is looking at one's own position of supremacy! But we know how that kind of an authority could be unstable to the core, as we as persons are neither permanent nor are we infallible. The source of real authority has to be more transcendental, absolute and infallible - is it so difficult to understand where that source could be?

In the Gospel the pharisees wonder about the authority of Jesus... they wonder from where it came! Ofcourse, it was from Jesus' total fidelity to the One who sent him. With that absolute fidelity and uncompromising surrender to the Lord,  Jesus could say anything and it would happen!