Monday of the Third Week of Lent

Today's Mass Readings

The prophetic lives of Elijah and Elisha are paralleled between master and disciple. Famously, Elijah won in the contest against 850 pagan prophets. Before the God of Israel sent down fire from heaven to ignite Elijah’s altar, the pagans hopped around theirs and slashed themselves in order get their deities’ attention (1 Kgs. 18:28). After this, Queen Jezebel wanted to put Elijah to death and the prophet waited for God’s presence on Mount Horeb. God did not make himself known fire, earthquake, or lightning, but only in a tiny whispering breeze (1 Kgs. 19:12-13). God is present and active in our world, but often through our patience and through smallness.

Elisha, formed by Elijah, will reverence how God works. When Naaman the Syrian came to him to have leprosy cleansed, he expected elaborate ritual and complicated works to accomplish. A simple washing was underwhelming – he could have stayed home for that! He is reminded that trust and obedience was needed not the extraordinary. And when Naaman performs the simple act he is cleansed.

When we look at our sin and get a simple penance from the confessor, we can feel like we owe God a pound of flesh above it. Yet we have been forgiven freely, we are only asked to repair what sin caused. We believe that advice must be beyond what we could discover on our own. But often we know what to do, we just do not want to face it. John the Baptist gave mind-numbingly simple counsel. He told tax collectors to stop collecting above the fee and soldiers to not falsely accuse (cf. Luke 3:13-14). Surely both knew that as part of their conversions, but the austere witness of the Baptizer clarified it for them.

In the sacramental life, often it does not feel like we have done enough or that anything happened. And yet, God is working imperceptibly within us. If we could razzle-dazzle the Father for what we wanted then we would believe in magic that manipulates God and not in the free gift of provident love. Let us, then, do now what we know to be right, detaching in simple and small ways, to return to God with our whole heart.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB