4 March. Monday in the Third Week of Lent
All members of the ACP are most welcome to contribute Homily Resource material to this website. Two paragraphs are fine for weekdays; a little more for Sundays. If possible, send it to me at least a week in advance of the date on which it applies. Send it to: rogers AT mountargus.ie
2 Kg 5:1ff. Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, takes the prophet’s advice and is cured of his leprosy.
Lk 4:24ff. The town of Nazareth turns against Jesus; “no prophet is accepted in his own home town.”
First Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-15
Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favour with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”
He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “A I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”
But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clen’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.”
Gospel: Luke 4:24-30
And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Where are the miracles nowadays?
Biblical faith includes a belief in miracles. God could and did intervene in human affairs so that dramatic and wonderful things happened. While miracles took people by surprise, they should have been prepared by pondering their own sacred traditions, which gave many signals of great things to come.
In the days of the prophet Elisha an Israelite slave girl, forced to live among the pagan Arameans, remembered her religious heritage better than the king of Israel. The great acts of God accomplished through Moses, Joshua, Samuel and other religious or civil leaders were reminders of what God could always accomplish. The only condition expected of the people was faith. Such faith was in a Jewish servant girl in the foreign city of Damascus. Instead of hating her master who kept her in service, she advised him where his incurable skin disease might be cured by a man of God. By contrast, the king of Israel did not believe that God could still help the needy and the oppressed. He was so taken up with his own status and privileges that he suspected the king of Aram to be “only looking for a quarrel with me!” How limited the hopes and possibilities of a selfish, unbelieving person. Even in wealthy prosperity they are more fearful than a slave girl in a foreign household!
Jesus, too, was like a slave in a foreign land who worked for the freedom of others. He remembered the traditions of his people, and knew his Bible very well. At Nazareth he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and found the passage . . . “The spirit of the Lord is upon me … to bring glad tidings to the poor,… sight to the blind … (Is 61:1) Though he would not perform miracles for public esteem, Jesus did so only out of compassion. The people at Nazareth should also have known their Bible and have caught the signals. But selfishness filled them with indignation against Jesus and they expelled him.
Faith in miracles is important; it requires compassion and in our hearts. For God miraculously to reach into our lives we must love and trust Him. Send out your light and your truth, o Lord, and bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling place.
This reflection is a very inspiring reflection. I pray that at this Holy Season, God our father grants us His children the grace to trust him always…God bless you all
Jesus’s signs, wonders, and miracles, not to mention, his authoritative teaching and preaching, signaled that the “Kingdom of God had arrived and more importantly that “God was among them”.
When the Israelites were in the desert, they grumbled a lot, and when they thought that God was not providing food and water, they were asking” Is God Among Us or Not? That question persists and persists, so that even today, we, ask, “Is God Among Us or Not?” Whether it is in our personal lives or it is in our local and universal Church life, I’m sure, we find ourselves, at least sometimes asking: “Is God Among Us or Not? Yes, God, intervenes in our lives. I know there are many people, even, in the Church, who do not believe God, bypasses natural law, and intervenes. It seems to be something that has happened in the Western world, with, there being a “sacredness” applied to empericism. It would seem that in the Eastern Church, there is still, a sense of the “mystical” and a belief, that God, did and does intervene in temperal affairs, our personal ones, of the Church, and of the world. I, myself, have had only an experience of God as being real and personal, and always, intervening in some way, in my life. As it says in scripture: “Jesus will reveal himself, to the one, who believes” and of course from the Sermon onthe Mount….THE PURE IN HEART SHALL SEE GOD and I think, you can take that statement to the bank, so to speak. However, yes, today, there is much doubt and skepticism about the “miracles” of Jesus.
We know that such things are understood by those who “see” with the faith of Jesus and Mary. I was struck recently by someone who is in the R.C.I.A. and is becoming Catholic, having been raised in a protestant tradition.
This comments finishes the above entry. The person, is becoming Catholic, and she is learning about such things, as the miracles, like the fishes and loaves, and the annunication of Mary. She finds, herself, completely overwhelmed, with the belief, in such things. I thought, yes, how would that be, to come to the R.C.I.A., at her age, which is near 50, have never heard of these things, and then be told, you must believe this…………it really is a question of faith……and that in itself……is a miracle to believe.
I know four people, three men and a woman, who have every reason it would seem to not even think to come to the Catholic Church. Young people in their mid – later twenties over less than a year. They are from various non Catholic traditions and very bright – know their stuff. One is working to finish his PhD and then seriously considering priesthood and religious life. I thought in beginning, “Right you lot are having me on here…. ” One is 24 and he sounds like he has encylodedias coming out his ears. A few months back I had something of a crisis of conscience and thought that was it I had to leave the RCC. He talked to me and gave me a completely different perspective. Was brilliant. Despite everything they are coming in and I was curious to know why. One thing – they could see the Beauty – the good. They’d not been blinded. And that helped me open my own eyes again too.