Homily for Tuesday, 11th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
11th Week of Ordinary Time

June 14, 2022
1 Kings 21: 17-29
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, New Rochelle

Elijah confronts Ahab & Jezebel in Naboth's vineyard

(Thomas Matthews Rook)

Yesterday’s reading and today’s narrate the story of Naboth, Ahab, and Elijah.  Naboth is an upright man who follows Torah.  Ahab is an oppressive monarch who has no concern for Torah.  He’s followed false gods, and now he murders someone who stands in his way, abetted by his idolatrous wife.  Like Nathan confronting David, Elijah comes to reproach the king and pronounce judgment.

God doesn’t tolerate rival gods, as we saw last week in the story of the prophets of Baal.  Nor does he tolerate social injustice, putting one’s property or power above one’s fidelity to himself.  He sides with the poor and the powerless.  His prophets remind us of that, of our religious obligations to him, and of our social bonds to one another—prophets like Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa in our own time.

Pope Francis, like St. John Paul before him, also has been a prophetic voice constantly reminding us of these truths.  He challenges us religious, e.g., to be faithful to our charism and our calling, and he challenges the world at large regarding the poor and the powerless, for example concerning war, migrants, the environment, the oppression of women and children thru trafficking and pornography, abortion and God’s plan for sexuality, care for the victims of disasters and violence.

We try to be sensitive to such concerns and to be faithful to our commitments as religious.  We know that we always stand under God’s judgment, like Ahab.  Each day the Word of God, like Elijah, meets us with a measurement of our words and actions, even our thoughts and attitudes—not so much regarding people on the other side of the world as the brothers in our own house and the sisters who attend us.