the Lord wants an open ear

Homily for Wednesday of the 1st Week of Ordinary Time

13 January 2010

St. Agnes Parish School Mass

Year for Priests

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We should not give up on discerning the Lord's will more precisely. We see that even as Jesus starts to get busy in his ministry, that he goes off to pray. He gets away so that he can hear exactly what His Father is asking him to do. At first his actions perplex Simon. Why does he need to go discern God's will? He is doing lots of good things. He is teaching and healing, and more people are coming to him than he can handle. What is there to discern? Jesus shows the apostles however, that even in the midst of doing good, there is a need to discern precisely what the Lord is asking. We are not to take a shotgun approach to life, just haphazardly doing as much as we can. There is a task that the Lord has given to us, and to no one else, and we must be restless until we find that mission.

The psalmist seems to say as much. Sacrifice and oblation you did not ask of me, but an open ear. The implication is that there are many people who are do-gooders, who offer many things out of love of the Lord. Many people offer sacrifice. But rare indeed is the one who has an open ear. Rare indeed is the person who understands God's will precisely instead of generally.

We see in the first reading that Samuel was especially ready to hear the Lord's will, and to become his prophet. Samuel lived in a time when there were many people doing good, many people offering sacrifice, but few people who gave God what he wanted most, an open ear. The author said Samuel lived in a time when the Lord was not revealing himself very much. Most likely, this was because no one was ready to listen. Samuel becomes the Lord's prophet perhaps because his was the most open ear the Lord could find. He is suprised at first at what is happening, but Eli, his spiritual mentor, guides him to open his ears fully and to believe that the Lord was speaking to him.

Mary received a vocation even greater than that of Samuel because she was even more ready than he was. Mary is the most open, of ear and of heart, of anyone. Sometimes we can complain that the Lord's will is difficult for us to discover. We can complain that he does not seem to be saying anything. But can we say that we are as ready as Mary was to receive the Lord's will? Are our hearts and our ears as open as were hers? The problem is not that the Lord is not speaking, it is that we are not ready to listen. Let us give the Lord what he desires most, an open ear. Speak Lord, your servant is listening. +m