Welcome back to the Jesse Tree on the Catholic Sprouts podcast.

Today is Saturday of the second week of Advent.

God created us to live in a family, and family has always been central to God's plan to save the world.

Adam and Eve raised a family.

Noah brought his family aboard the ark.

Abraham became the father of a great family,

and Jacob and his sons were such a prolific family

that their family became a nation.

At this point in the story, once more family plays a key role.

God is preparing to give the nation of Israel a powerful prophet. Through this, God accepts the generous

gift of a loving mother, and that gift transforms an entire nation. Listen now to the

story of Hannah and her son Samuel found in the first book of Samuel. 1. Samuel 1, 9 through 11, 20,

24 through 28. Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli, the priest, was sitting on the seat

beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and

wept bitterly. She made this vow, O Lord of host, if only you will look on the misery of your servant

and remember me and not

forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before

you as a Nazarite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants,

and no razor shall touch his head. The Lord remembered her, in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son,

she named him Samuel, for she said, I have asked him of the Lord. When she had weaned him,

she took him up with her, along with a three-year-old bowl, an effap of flour, and the skin of wine.

She brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and the child was young.

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