Thursday of Week 2 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 7:25-8:6 | Psalm 39(40):7-10,17 | Mark 3:7-12
You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim.
Instead, here am I. (Psalm 39:7)
I took yesterday off from my normal work schedule to help my sick sister-in-law, the steadfast caregiver of her Parkinson’s-afflicted husband for almost 20 years. In the process, I got to spend a few hours “babysitting” with her eldest grandson.
My grandnephew (dear Lord do I feel old now) is a precocious, energetic and very observant 6-year-old. He noticed just about everything about me, from my lack of hair up top, to the Pebble smartwatch on my wrist, to the almost-invisible patch of threadbare denim on the left thigh of my jeans.
At one point, he saw me peering out the window when a local thunderstorm started, and asked me what I was looking at. When I told him that I was watching how the storm drain outside filled up over time, he clambered excitedly up to the window next to me, listened while I described my fascination with how quickly a small stream at the bottom grew into a raging torrent filling over three-quarters of the drain, and interjected with descriptive exclamations each time a bizarre piece of trash rushed by. (Naturally, it turned into an object lesson against littering.)
He also asked me what that weird “stick” that he saw atop every block was. I can’t think of a single adult who would’ve noticed lightning rods, much less be curious about how they worked and embellish my matter-of-fact description with appropriate hand gestures and sound effects.
In short, he paid attention to me.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
God also asks us to pay attention to Him in our daily lives,
to have an “open ear” to His prompting in the silence of our daily prayer,
to have an “open eye” to the people around us, to their needs and sufferings,
to have an “open heart” to compassion and mercy for the weak and helpless.
As the psalmist notes, God doesn’t ask for burnt-offering or sin-sacrifice, dead lumps of matter fit only for show. Instead, He asks for us to serve Him – alive, active and attentive in our faith.
Lord, here we are to answer Your call. Do with us what You will. Amen.