Reflection - Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Opening doors in life

We can probably all think of people who opened doors for us in life. Perhaps at a crucial moment in our lives they pointed us in the right direction. They were an influence for good on us; maybe they shared with us some gift they possessed, or allowed us to benefit from an experience they had or some discovery they made. We appreciate these people because they had the freedom and the generosity to give something worthwhile away for the benefit of others, rather than keeping it to themselves.

That is how John Baptist is portrayed in the gospel reading this Sunday. He had come to recognize Jesus as a very special revelation of God’s love. Far from keeping that discovery to himself, he shared it with his own disciples, even though he knew that in doing so he was going to lose them to Jesus. He pointed two of his disciples in the direction of Jesus. He opened a door for them, even though it would mean a loss to himself. A short while later, one of those two disciples, Andrew, did for his brother, Simon, what John the Baptist had done for him. He led his brother to Jesus. In the first reading, Eli did something similar for Samuel, helping him to hear God’s call. The readings this Sunday put before us three people, Eli, John the Baptist and Andrew, each of whom, in different ways, pointed others in the right direction, led others to the one who is the source of life.

We could probably all identify a John the Baptist or an Andrew or an Eli in our own lives, people who, in some way or another, brought us to the Lord, or helped us to recognize and receive the Lord who was present to us. We might think first of our own parents who brought us to the baptismal font as infants. As early as possible into our lives they wanted to say to us what John the Baptist said to his disciples, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God’. Then, in the following years, they may helped us to grow in our relationship the Lord into whom we had been baptized, bringing us to the church, praying with us, reading stories from the gospels to us, taking us to see the crib at Christmas, placing an image of the Lord or of one of the saints in our room, helping us to prepare for the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confirmation. If we were fortunate, we might have had a good religion teacher at school who took us a step further in our relationship with the Lord, who enabled us to ‘come and see’, in the words of the gospel today. I went to secondary school in Beneavin College in Finglas, and one of the De La Salle brothers there brought us through the gospel of Luke in religion class. Looking back, he was sharing with us his own relationship with the Lord. It made a deep impression on me at the time.

Samuel who was led to the Lord by Eli is described in the first reading as a boy. In the gospel reading, the two disciples who were led to the Lord by John the Baptist and Simon who was led there by Andrew were all adults. It was as adults that they allowed themselves to be directed towards the person of Jesus. In our adult years, we too may have met people who helped us to grow in our relationship with the Lord. There can come a time in our adult life, when we are very open to a reawakening, a deepening, of our faith. We may find themselves searching for something more than we presently experience. The first words of Jesus to the disciples of John the Baptist took the form of the question, ‘What do you want?’, or, ‘What are you searching for?’ Jesus sought to engage with those who were searching. He enters our adult lives in response to our deepest longings. In our searching we can meet someone or some group who opens a door for us into a deeper relationship with the Lord. Through them the Lord can reach us and touch our lives in a way he had never done so before.

At any time in our adult life we can meet a John the Baptist who says to us, ‘Look, there is the Lamb of God’, and that can happen to us over and over again, right up to the very end of our lives. The Lord never ceases to call us through others into a deeper relationship with himself. Indeed, there can come a time when the Lord asks any one of us to be a John the Baptist or an Andrew or an Eli for somebody else. He may call us to share our faith in some simple way, to open a door to the Lord for others. Our response to such a call can take many different forms. For Eli it took the form of helping the younger Samuel to find the right words for his prayer. For Andrew, it took the form of sharing a significant experience with his brother. The readings this Sunday invite us to be open to the many ways the Lord can draw us to himself, and also to the ways that he may be calling us to help him in drawing others to himself.

©Association of Catholic Priests