Prophet Samuel

No fixed feast day in the calendar

Prophet Samuel: the back of the card, with its short story, lesson and a QR code that opens it in the Catholic Information app. The full text is below.

Flip the card and scan the QR code on the back to open it in the app

Samuel, the boy who said “Speak”, and the prophet who anointed David as king.

Who is he?

Samuel was a prophet and the last of the judges who led Israel (cf. 1 Sm 7:15). He anointed the first two kings of Israel: King Saul and King David.

Life story

Hannah had no children. She was very sad, and she went to the temple to weep and pray to God, promising to give her child to God. God heard her prayer. She gave birth to a son and named him Samuel, because she said: “I asked the LORD for him” (1 Sm 1:20).

When the boy was still young, she brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh, so that he could serve God with Eli the priest (cf. 1 Sm 1:24). One night, as the boy was sleeping in the temple, he heard someone call his name. He answered: “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, but Eli said he had not called him. This happened three times. Then Eli understood that it was the LORD who was calling the boy, and he taught him how to answer. The next time God called, the boy said: “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sm 3:10).

When he grew up, Samuel became God’s prophet. When the people asked for a king like the other nations, he was not pleased, but at God’s command he anointed Saul as the first king (cf. 1 Sm 8:6; 10:1). Later, because King Saul did not obey God, God sent Samuel to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse. One by one, the tall older brothers passed in front of him, but God taught him: “man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sm 16:7). He sent for the youngest, David, who was out in the fields tending the sheep, and anointed him in the midst of his brothers (cf. 1 Sm 16:11-13).

Why does the Church honor him?

From his childhood to his old age, he always listened to God and passed God’s word on to the people, even when he had to say hard things, even to the king. He prayed for the people and taught them to come back to God. The Roman Martyrology remembers him on August 20.

A lesson for you

When you pray, don’t only talk: spend a moment in silence and say to God: “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
When your parents or teachers call you, answer quickly, “Here I am,” like the boy Samuel.
Don’t judge your friends by how they look, because God looks at the heart.

Identifying marks

A horn of oil: he used a horn of oil to anoint the young shepherd David as king (cf. 1 Sm 16:13).
A hand on his chest, listening: recalling his words to God: “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sm 3:10).
The hills of Bethlehem with a flock of sheep in the distance: where he found David tending the sheep (cf. 1 Sm 16:11).
A boy sleeping in the temple near the lamp of God (*): the scene of God calling Samuel at night (cf. 1 Sm 3:3-10).

(*) Only in some pictures and statues.

The text on this page is the card in the Catholic Information app, word for word.