The Need for Holy Mentors and Holy Mentoring

"In God I trust; I shall not fear," we pray in today's responsorial psalm.  In the first reading, 1 Sam 18: 6-9;  19: 1-7, Saul's son Jonathan cautions David to hide--"[m]y father Saul is trying to kill you.  ...[P]lease be on your guard tomorrow morning." So David hides! Jonathan positions himself close to his father that morning so that he can intercede on behalf of David. Jonathan knows that his father is jealous of David, whom, upon his return from killing Goliath and 10s of thousands of Philistines out to harm the nation of Israel, is lauded for his accomplishment.  In the process, the people credit Saul for killing less of Israel's enemies.

Jealousy is a powerful force and gone unchecked can lead to disastrous results. People can lose their lives and murderers their freedom. Chaos abounds for all in this web of jealousy. God protects his servant David as well as his servant Saul, using Jonathan, Saul's son, to challenge him.  "Let not your majesty sin against his servant David, for he has committed no offense against you, but has helped you very much by his deeds."  Saul listens and David is now safe in his service to Saul.

Like Saul, you and I may, at times, need someone who will intervene for us when  jealousy or other unruly passions consume us and we are out to berate another: bring harm to them by verbally   For some of us that is a spiritual director, a confessor, a dear friend, a sibling, a school counselor, a teacher). For all of us, thank God, Jesus is that person. Jesus is always on our side. Jesus will destroy "death" in us and "bring life to light [within us] through the Gospel"  (Today's gospel Acclamation).

God, forgive me when I let jealousy or any other human passion get the best of me and rule my thoughts and actions. I pray for the grace to be open to the person/s You send to me to challenge my thinking when I am off base.  May I also be open to holy reading that will redirect my thinking, to taking time to sit in Your holy  presence in a church or chapel or in my room gazing into your face upon the cross and allowing You to gaze upon me in love and mercy, transforming whatever disorder has taken hold me and purifying my heart of sinful inclinations!

Speak, Lord, Your Servant Is Listening

In today’s first  reading, 1 Samuel 3: 1-10, 19-20, young Samuel is asleep when he hears his name being called.  He goes to Eli, his superior and mentor, thinking Eli called him. He does this three times.  Eli then realizes that it is the Lord who is calling Samuel and instructs him to go back to sleep and if he hears his name called again that he should answer: “Speak , Lord, your servant is listening.”  Until that point, Samuel “was not familiar with the Lord, because the Lord had not revealed anything to him as yet.”  Note the statement “as yet.”  You may not, yet, be familiar with the Lord.  However you will be, that is part of our call as baptized Christians to get to know the Lord and His ways, to put on His thoughts, to recognize His will and follow it.  “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her” (Hosea 2:14). Sometimes, as we say in the addiction’s field, people have to hit rock bottom before they cry out: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”   Somehow we need to experience the absolute emptiness of the promises of this world and in that desert come to realize that it is the Lord whom we  seek, and need, that it is His voice for which we need to be listening. Out of our sleep, the Lord calls us to be His instrument in a world darkened by sin, led astray by ego-demands to accumulate material things and to climb the corporate ladder of success while neglecting those of the Spirit. 

Am I ready to be awakened? Do I have a wisdom figure, a spiritual director,  like Eli whom I trust, who encourages me to listen for the Lord’s voice amid the darkness of night?