The Space God Fills: From Emptiness to Mission

Voice over by Carol San San Lwin

1Sam 1:1-8, Psalm: 115, Mk 1:14-20

My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

The human heart knows many kinds of emptiness. There is the ache of unfulfilled longing, the weariness of routine, and the quiet sorrow of what seems missing. Yet, the Scriptures today reveal a profound truth: it is often into our emptiness that God speaks His most compelling call. What we perceive as a void, He sees as a space ready to be filled with His purpose.

In the first book of Samuel, we meet Hannah. Her story opens with a poignant emptiness: she is barren in a culture that saw children as a sign of God’s blessing. Year after year, she endures the pain of her condition and the provocation of her rival. “Her rival, however, would torment her constantly to irritate her,” the text tells us. Hannah’s sorrow is so deep she weeps and refuses to eat. Her husband’s well-meaning but clumsy question, “Why do you weep? Why are you not eating?” only underscores his inability to fill her void. Hannah’s emptiness is a physical and spiritual ache, a space of profound longing. Yet, this very emptiness prepares the ground for her transformative prayer and the miraculous gift of Samuel, who would become a great prophet. Her emptiness, offered to God, becomes the cradle of a mighty vocation.

This pattern finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Gospel. Jesus arrives in Galilee proclaiming, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” He then walks by the Sea of Galilee and sees Simon and Andrew casting their nets. He sees James and John mending theirs. In a sense, they too knew an emptiness—not of barrenness, but perhaps of a life defined solely by the daily catch, by routines that could no longer contain the soul’s deeper hunger. Into that space, Jesus speaks a direct, disruptive call: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately, they abandon their nets—the symbol of their old life and security—and follow Him. Their emptiness of a greater purpose is filled with the mission of the Kingdom.

Here is the beautiful connection for us. God does not call us because we are full of ourselves, our plans, and our securities. He often calls us in our Hannah moments—in our sorrow, our frustration, our sense that there must be more. He calls us in our fisherman moments—when we are busy with the mundane, yet feel an undercurrent of restlessness for something greater.

What is the emptiness you carry? Is it a grief, an unmet desire, a feeling of spiritual dryness, or simply a quiet sense that your daily routine lacks eternal significance? Do not despair of it. That very space is where God desires to speak.

Our emptiness is a homing device for God’s grace. The call of Christ, “Come after me,” is His answer to that ache.

The comfort today is that the God who called a sorrowful woman to become the mother of a prophet, and who called simple fishermen to become pillars of the Church, is calling you. He is not asking you to fill your own void first. He is asking you to offer Him your emptiness—your nets, your tears, your ordinary life—and in exchange, He will give you a mission. He will make you a bearer of His presence and a herald of His Kingdom.

Let us pray for the grace to hear His voice in our emptiness, and the courage of the disciples to leave behind what we must, to follow Him. Amen.

May God bless you all!