Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
First Reading: 1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19
Second Reading: 1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20
Gospel Reading: Jn 1:35-42
In the First Reading this Sunday, Eli instructs Samuel to respond, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” when he hears God call him. In the Second Reading, St. Paul stresses that we do not own ourselves, not even our bodies. In the Gospel Reading, Andrew and John follow Jesus as soon as they hear who he is.
God does not want our time, our service, or our money. We cannot satisfy him by offering him more time, more service, or more money. He wants us, ourselves.
All this sounds unbearably oppressive. However, God loves us. He wants the best for us, and he knows what that is, for he made us.
As an analogy, think of a light bulb. A bulb is designed to be inserted in an electrical socket. Only then can it give the light it was designed to give. Only then can it become fully itself. A light bulb that asserts its independence and refuses to become a part of an electrical circuit can never be happy. What else can it do? The only way for it to be happy is for it simply to say to its maker, “Here I am: where do you want to put me?”
Of course, Christ’s own image is better: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Unless you remain grafted on to me, you will have no life in you. Apart from me you can do nothing. However, if you remain in me, you will bear much fruit.”
According to the usual Invitatory Psalm from the Liturgy of the Hours, “The Lord is God, the mighty God, the great King over all the gods. He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the highest mountains as well. He made the sea; it belongs to him, the dry land too, for it was formed by his hands.”
“Come, then, let us bow down and worship, bending the knee before the Lord, our maker. For he is our God and we are his people, the flock he shepherds.”
“Today, listen to the voice of the Lord: do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged me and provoked me, although they had seen all of my works.”
In an alternative Psalm, we say, “Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy. Know that he, the Lord, is God. He made us; we belong to him. We are his people, the sheep of his flock.”
Ownership of ourselves is just not an option. As St. Paul said, “You are not your own,” for “you were bought with a price.”
The world today encourages us to think differently. “It’s your time; spend it the way you want.” “Stop thinking about others and think about yourself for a change.” “It’s your body: you decide whether you want to carry your baby to term or not.” “It’s your life: you have the right to decide when to end it.”
The answer to all this is that it is simply not true. God made us: we belong to him.
Nevertheless, he has raised us to the dignity of his sons and daughters. He wants us to respond to his love as persons, not as things, and so he gives us the freedom to say no to him, if we want to. If we do not say to him, “Thy will be done,” he says to us, eventually, “Have it your way: thy will be done”; and all that is left to us then is hell.
Responding to God like Samuel and the apostles is not slavery, any more than the submission of a light bulb in being placed in a light socket is slavery. Rather it is true freedom: the freedom to reach our true and maximum potential.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English with new insights, in both print and YouTube form, at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. He is also teaching the course in person on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, 33rd Avenue and Willow Street, Vancouver, and Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon in St. Anthony’s Church Hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. Next week’s topic is Baptism and Confirmation. The course is entirely free of charge and no pre-registration is necessary.