Homily for Thursday, 10th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
10th Week of Ordinary Time

June 9, 2022
1 Kings 18: 41-46
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, New Rochelle

“Elijah said to Ahab, ‘Go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of heavy rain” (1 Kings 18: 41).

In yesterday’s reading, Elijah challenged the 450 prophets of Baal to a duel that would demonstrate the YHWH was God and Baal was an empty idol, worthy of the mockery thrown at him by the sacred writer.  The prophet told the assembled Israelites to quit straddling the issue and make a decision, to follow YHWH or Baal and stop compromising their worship (18:21)—like what Bp. Paprocki has told politicians in his diocese of Springfield, Colorado’s bishops have told state legislators, and as you’ve all heard, Abp. Cordileone has told Nancy Pelosi:  stop straddling the moral fence and decide either to act like Catholics or recognize that you’re out of communion with the Body of Christ.

In Elijah’s case, YHWH won the duel; he alone provided fire to consume the prepared holocaust.  The lectionary skips over the verse wherein Elijah slits the throats of all the prophets of Baal (18:40).  Our “Catholic” politicians are fortunate they’re dealing only with bishops and not with Elijah.

Today’s reading brings us to the aftermath.  The land has been purged of Baal worshipers (not really, because shortly Jezebel will seek to put Elijah to death, compelling him to flee [19:1-3]).  But with the Lord acknowledged, apparently even by weak-kneed Ahab, the drought and the famine can end.  The king may enjoy a feast, and presumably Elijah and others with him, and rain comes at last, after 3½ years.

“The hand of the Lord was on Elijah” (18:46), who exercised his prophecy in the Lord’s name and recalled the people to fidelity, as St. Luke and Jesus himself would later say of John the Baptist (Luke 1:17, Mark 9:12-13), recognizing him as a new Elijah.

One of the offices of us religious is to recall Christ’s people to fidelity to him, and indeed to bear witness to the whole world that Christ alone is Lord.  On that issue, the world at large and even Catholics are inclined to straddle the fence; all too often, us too in the way we think and speak and act.

Asked what’s wrong with the world today, G.K. Chesterton responded, “I am.”  Before we look at Pelosi or Putin or the brother sitting next to us, thinking he needs a conversion experience, if we listen to Chesterton’s wisdom, we’ll admit that I need conversion; I need a more complete commitment to the Lord.  The end of society’s miserable drought and famine—so many ills that we can’t number them all—begins with me.