For any of you who follow the Catholic Bishops’ website to find Scripture readings for each day, and/or anyone who hears those readings at daily liturgies, you must have been wondering yesterday why I used the reading from next Thursday. I was wondering that myself just now since the battle I spoke of as a great success for Saul and David had not happened by then or in this morning’s text either! It’s not even as if I skipped down to the same day in next week on the calendar. (Yesterday was Wednesday!) My only conclusion is about serendipity. The jealousy theme was already in my head when I opened to the Scripture texts and the story of Saul and David gave me a great example of what I was thinking.
Significant, I think, to this “mistake” is the fact that the correct reading for yesterday was about God’s call to Samuel. The fact that the boy – Samuel – had mistaken God’s call for that of his mentor Eli makes me think that maybe God was interested in having the topic of jealousy come up yesterday for someone. Me? Maybe. You? Perhaps. That might just be my way of making an excuse for my mistake but I’m pretty careful about checking the date as well as the whimsical nature of my cursor sometimes. And the fact that I have written over 1,300 of these posts without such a happening makes me want to attribute it to something other than carelessness.
Whatever the reason for yesterday’s mishap, perhaps the words of Barbra Streisand suffice for today when she sings, “There are no mistakes, just lessons to be learned.”
