Hearing God's Call

Today we have come to an end of our stay in Galilee, the region of much of our Lord’s ministry. We concluded our journey in Galilee with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Capernaum, in the church built on top of the ruins of the house of St Peter’s mother-in-law. The readings of the day matched with the theme of our call to ministry. The first reading was about the call of Samuel by God. The main celebrant emphasized the message of the readings which call us to contemplate more deeply during this pilgrimage as we make preparations for our deaconate ordinations. After Mass we gathered outside and the tour guide gave us a lot of important information about the site. He challenged us to think about why of all places, Bethsaida, Tiberius and others, Jesus chose Capernaum as the headquarters of his ministry. The first reason was because the area around the Sea of Galilee had a population of at least 20,000 people. We are not shocked hearing that he fed five thousand men with loaves and fishes. Unlike other small towns like Nazareth, Cana and others, which had a population less than 200 people, the area surrounding Capernaum was highly populated. The second reason was the fact the Capernaum was the center of business and taxation. All of the caravans made a stop in Capernaum and these people would take what they had heard and seen in Capernaum to all other places of their destiny.

We made another stop at Jacob’s Well in Samaria, which is under a Greek Orthodox Church.  At Jacob’s Well we read from the Gospel of St John, 4:4-42.  This is the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The text was expounded upon and later we received the historical and archeological information about the place from the tour guide.  We as pilgrims and future priests were challenged with the work that lies ahead of us.  The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well shows how God’s people are longing to be given the living word of God. We can relate this to today’s reading about the call of Samuel; God has called us to minister to his people and has given us this time on pilgrimage to prepare ourselves as best we can for the task ahead of us. We are doing this by being open to God’s grace, being conscious of our inner movements, and deepening our understanding of the Scriptures so that when the time comes to deliver the word of God, we are very prepared and confident.