(1 Samuel 1:9–20)
Jan 13, 2026 - Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
The turning point of the Book of Samuel is not a battle, a speech, or a political decision. It is a prayer.
Hannah goes to the sanctuary at Shiloh. She does not shout. She does not perform. The text tells us something striking:
“Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard.” (1 Sam 1:13)
To the priest Eli, her prayer looks like nothing. He even mistakes her silence for drunkenness. But what is invisible to religious authority is loud and clear to God.
This is a decisive biblical insight.
Prayer does not need volume to have weight. It does not need many words to be effective. Jesus will later say the same:
“Do not babble like the pagans, who think they will be heard because of their many words.” (Mt 6:7)
And the psalmist reminds us:
“God knows the secrets of the heart.” (Ps 44:21)
Hannah teaches us that the deepest decisions of history are not made where voices are loudest, but where hearts are most honest.
This raises a serious question for our world today.
Where are the decisions that shape our future really being made? At global summits, economic forums, and centers of power—places like Davos, where wealth, markets, and strategies dominate the conversation? Or in small chapels, kitchens, hospital rooms, and quiet corners of churches, where ordinary people pour out fear, hope, anger, and longing before God?
Catholic Social Teaching reminds us that human dignity begins not with productivity or power, but with the interior life of the person. Hannah matters not because she is influential, but because she is human—wounded, ignored, yet fully seen by God.
Her prayer also challenges the logic of our systems. In a world that values efficiency and measurable outcomes, Hannah’s prayer looks unproductive. Yet it becomes fruitful beyond imagination.
From her silent prayer comes Samuel— a prophet who will confront kings, challenge unjust power, and remind Israel that no authority is absolute.
Hannah’s prayer helps us to realise that real change often begins not at the top, but at the smallest, most vulnerable level—where voices are least amplified.
So the question remains with us:
Do we really believe that history is shaped only by markets, weapons, and negotiations? Or do we still trust that God listens—closely and attentively—to the quiet prayers of those the world overlooks?
Hannah invites us to believe that history is not finally shaped by those who speak the loudest, but by those who pray the deepest. Empires announce decisions. Markets enforce them. Weapons execute them. But again and again, the Bible dares to say that the future begins elsewhere— in hearts opened before God, in prayers the world cannot hear, and in faithfulness that refuses to surrender hope.
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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