Week 1 - My desire

1 Samuel 3, 1-10

1. Preparation:

ð Take time to find calm and silence.

ð Adopt a suitable posture—balanced between tension and relaxation. You don't pray only with your heart, but also with your body: your head, your facial expression, your hands, your torso...

ð  Try to place yourself in the presence of God, and ask for the grace to listen, to speak, and to let your life and being be illuminated by His presence.

Reading from the revelation to Samuel  

3 1 During the time young Samuel was minister to the Lord under Eli, the word of the Lord was scarce and vision infrequent. 2 One day Eli was asleep in his usual place. His eyes had lately grown so weak that he could not see. 3 The lamp of God was not yet extinguished,[b]and Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was.

4 The Lord called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.” 5 He ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.” “I did not call you,” Eli answered. “Go back to sleep.” So he went back to sleep. 6 Again the Lord called Samuel, who rose and went to Eli. “Here I am,” he said. “You called me.” But he answered, “I did not call you, my son. Go back to sleep.”

7 Samuel did not yet recognize the Lord, since the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. 8 The Lord called Samuel again, for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, “Here I am. You called me.”

Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the youth. 9 So he said to Samuel, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

When Samuel went to sleep in his place, 10 the Lord came and stood there, calling out as before: Samuel, Samuel! Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

2. Guided Meditation:

a)    Samuel grows up in the sanctuary of the Lord, under the guidance of the aging Eli, and this for many years.

• What are the places and who are the people that call you to life?

b)   Samuel hears the call three times. Familiarity with God is not something Samuel is born with. He hears and senses something, but he doesn’t yet understand what the voice means, what it is about, what he is truly being invited into. And yet the voice continues to speak, again and again. God keeps calling—gently and patiently. Sometimes in a very discreet way. 

• Where do you hear God’s calling voice? Are there desires in your life that keep returning?

c)     The old Eli helps Samuel in his search for God. Through this, Samuel gradually learns not only to hear the voice but also to recognize and name it as the voice of God—as the voice of his origin, the source of life within him.

• Are there people who have helped you, or still help you, to find traces of God in your life?

• Is there something that has made you more familiar with God—with how God works in your life?

 d)   With Eli’s help, Samuel understands that it is God who is calling him. He says: “Speak, your servant is listening.”

• How do I respond—or how would I like to respond—to God’s invitation in my life?

• What do I hope to hear from God when I listen?

3. Reflection: We are now nearing the end of the meditation. I invite you to finish with a conversation in your heart, where you tell a good friend—or perhaps God—briefly what you take away from this time of prayer, just as one friend would speak to another.