Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Today's Gospel continues the story we began yesterday.
Jesus, accompanied by the Apostles, leaves the synagogue and goes to Peter's house.
From the excavations of Capernaum, we know that Peter's house was just 50 yards south of the synagogue.
When Christ enters, they tell him about Peter's mother-in-law, who is in bed with a troubling fever.
Even though it's still the Sabbath, Christ does not hesitate to heal her, and she immediately starts serving him.
This is a way of expressing her gratitude, and also a demonstration of how sudden and complete the healing was.
The food would have been prepared before the Sabbath, as the Law of Moses required, so she only has to distribute food that has already been prepared.
At sunset, the Sabbath ends, and so the people feel free to bring their sick and possessed to Jesus.
They saw his power in the synagogue a few hours before, when he cast out a demon with a simple word of command, instead of a long exorcism.
They'd never seen or heard of anything like it.
That gives them confidence that he has great power to help them, to remedy all kinds of ills, and they may also have heard what he did for Peter's mother-in-law.
Soon the whole town was gathered at the door, and Jesus cured many who were sick and drove out many demons.
After he had satisfied the crowd, he rested, but not for long.
He rose very early before dawn, and went off to a deserted place to pray.
This is a good model for prayer.
Early in the morning, our mind is clear, and few will be up to distract us from our prayer.
If they are, we can seek a deserted place, where we will be free from distractions.
This can often be done even without leaving our home.
Jesus said elsewhere, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and pray to your father who is in secret.
What did he pray about?
Our scripture does not say.
Don Dolindo Rotolo thinks that he was praying for the people who had crowded around the door of Peter's house.
He'd seen a lot of people who were suffering.
He'd healed their bodies, but there were many others who were similarly suffering in other places.
And even more than the evils that afflict the body, he was troubled or worried about those evils that afflict the soul.
The root problem is sin, and so he prayed that people would be touched by his ministry, prayed for those people who would be touched by his ministry, that they might receive God's light and salvation.
Many would hear his words of preaching, not only in Capernaum, but also in the other cities and villages.
But unless they received grace, those words would not lead them to salvation.
This is certainly a reasonable guess at what Jesus was praying for.
On another occasion we read, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.
So we know that he had a compassionate heart, a heart that went out to people in need.
The verse that accompanies the Alleluia said, My sheep hear my voice.
If we are his sheep, we must listen to him.
Those who say, Lord, Lord, but do not do the will of his Father in heaven are not his sheep.
He has compassion on sheep without a shepherd, and if we want to benefit from that compassion, we have to behave like his sheep, we have to listen.
In the first reading, Samuel gives us an example of the attitude that we must have in prayer and indeed in all our life.
The boy responds at once when he is called, even though he doesn't understand who it is that's calling him.
So Eli has to teach him to say, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
This is certainly a good prayer for us.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
Early in the morning, we place ourselves before him, and we can say these words to him, and then await what our Lord might say to us.
But before Eli can teach Samuel to say, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening, he has to guess that God is doing something that is rarely heard of, or that was rarely heard of, for at that time a revelation of the Lord was uncommon and vision infrequent.
He was only able to do this because Samuel was not a boy who would have played tricks on Eli.
So if he said that he heard someone calling, it was not a game or a lie, but it was something that was really happening.
Samuel's name means heard of God.
This means that his mother was heard of God.
God listened to her prayer when she asked for a son.
And Samuel indeed heard God during his whole life.
He heard and obeyed, even when God asked him to do difficult things.
And in fact, the very first time he speaks to him in the part of the text that the reading skips over, God tells him to deliver some unpleasant news to Eli.
The obedience that we see in Samuel and even more in Christ, who said, Here am I, Lord, I come to do your will.
This is an example for us.
Samuel came to Eli and said, Here I am.
But Eli had no need of him.
He was called and came again without showing any signs of impatience.
Christ is called and displays great patience.
He says, Here am I, presenting himself as a sacrifice that will do what none of the Old Testament sacrifices could.
Sacrifice or oblation you wish not, says the psalm.
Burnt offerings or sin offerings you sought not.
God sought a living and willing sacrifice, a sacrifice made with infinite love.
Obedience unto death and death on the cross.
We will probably not be asked as much as that when we listen to God.
But we must seek him and do his will, seek him and seek his will in our prayer.
Christ shows us by his example that it is good to start early in the morning.
Eli teaches Samuel and us to say, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
This is the attitude that we must have in prayer.
Listening to the Lord who speaks to us through his word, through spiritual books, and by inspirations.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.