The holidays are past, and we are blessed with a powerful trio of readings on yet another
extraordinary, ordinary Sunday! Here I am Lord, I come to do your will!
I love the responsorial song and/or hymn so many of us will sing at our Masses this weekend, and yet one of my greatest challenges is wondering if I am indeed doing the Lord’s will. Am I even remotely doing what he had planned for me when I was blessed with this life?
I know I am not at all like Samuel. I have not had his caution and thoughtfulness to ensure that all my words are “without effect.” I have been at more times than I want to recall uncaring, hurtful, and unchristian in my life. I haven’t been the best that I could be. My days on this earth are getting fewer and fewer now, and I see how I have squandered so much of my time. I know now that I could have done more and better in so many ways.
As today’s readings tell us about meeting our Lord and Savior, perhaps in our time after Christ returns, will he ask a version of today’s questions to us – to me: What were you so busy doing? Were you listening? Were you kind and merciful to the lost, the lonely, the last? Why does this seem so very hard some days?!