Ears prepared to hear

The commentary of Fr Larry Gillick SJ on the texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invites us to become aware of the nature of the listening spirit within our being. We need to check our spiritual ears. Samuel is sleeping in theTemple in service of the priest Eli. He hears a voice calling and his initial responses bring him to Eli to find out what he wants. The priest helps Samuel "tune in" to the likelihood that God is called him. When so prepared with ears open, he responds as instructed "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening" Father Larry suggests that we have internal tension between being biased to hear the invitations to selfless service in modeling Jesus and self serving, self destructive action serving ego and our understanding of being at the centre of the world. Friar Jude Winkler opens the texts with an explanation of the role of judge toward which Samuel is progressing. In the first letter to the Corinthians Paul is addressing the magical attitude, according to Friar Jude, that the residents of this area, and perhaps we hold today, that reciting the prayers and getting to a liturgy occasionally are living and practicing faith. The  ear that is tuned by association with those who are struggling for more will inform us of invitations to actually live lives which glorify God in the ways daily that we use our body. Our speech, body language, conversation, habits, gestures, humour and those acts which are completely self serving can celebrate the life we seek or deny it. As we struggle on to hear the invitations and to "Come and See" as the the disciples in John's Gospel show us, we may hear like Peter that we are called to a change in name and therefore in life. The word play on Peter's name suggested by Friar Jude may also be appropriate for us who can be stubborn rocks when it comes to accepting invitations to change.