Gospel: March 24, 2025
March 24, 2025 (Monday)
3rd Week of Lent
Psalter: Week 3 / (Violet)
Ps 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4
A thirst is my soul for the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God?
1st Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-15b*
Gospel: Luke 4:24-30
Jesus added, “No prophet is honored in his own country. Truly, I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens withheld rain for three years and six months and a great famine came over the whole land. Yet, Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow of Zarephath, in the country of Sidon.
There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet; and no one was healed except Naaman, the Syrian.” On hearing these words, the whole assembly became indignant. They rose up and brought him out of the town, to the edge of the hill on which Nazareth is built, intending to throw him down the cliff. But he passed through their midst and went his way.
Reflection:
“Why are we slow to believe?”
Both readings point to an expectation that God will act in an extraordinary way when we seek his help. We are disappointed if there are no flashing lights and drama. Naaman is furious that Elisha, God’s prophet, doesn’t come to him in person and call on the name of the Lord. Instead, he is sent a message to do something ordinary, to go and bathe in the river Jordan.
The people of Nazareth is also suspicious of Jesus because he is one of them, and so they refuse to believe that he is a servant of God, let alone God himself. The only people with wisdom in today’s readings are Naaman’s servants, who challenge him to cooperate with Elisha’s instruction and do the simple thing that he has been asked to do. The servants speak to us, too. If we are willing to believe that God can act in the extraordinary, why are we slow to believe that he can act in the ordinary things of life, too?
