Homily for Saturday, 10th Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Saturday
10th Week of Ordinary Time

June 15, 2024
1 Kings 19: 19-21
Mass of Mary, Disciple of the Lord
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

When we think of vocation calls in the Bible, our thoughts probably go 1st to young Samuel (1 Sam 3:1-14) or to the pairs of brothers at the Sea of Galilee (Mark 1:16-20).  There are plenty more in the Gospels, not all of them with positive responses.  Luke records that Jesus chided one would-be follower, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God” (9:62).

(by Augustin Hirschvogel)

Elisha did exactly the opposite.  He took his hands off the plow, and not only didn’t look back but even destroyed the means of his livelihood (1 Kgs 19:20-21).  That was dramatic enuf.  Also dramatic is the manner of his call.  It’s wordless.  Elijah uses a symbolic action, throwing his cloak over his intended disciple (19:19).  The gesture appears to mean that Elisha should take on Elijah’s prophetic role.  The gesture will be confirmed later when, after a fiery chariot carries Elijah off to heaven, his cloak falls from him for Elisha to pick up and wield immediately to divide the Jordan as Elijah had done and to cross over, filled with the spirit of Elijah. (2 Kgs 2:1-15).  Elisha faithfully followed Elijah after leaving behind father, mother, everyone else, and everything else, and he continued Elijah’s prophetic mission in Israel.

In our prayer this morning, we identified the Virgin Mary as “a disciple faithful to the words of life” (Collect).  We’ll pray later that “we may be true disciples of Christ, eagerly hearing his words and putting them into practice” (Postcommunion).  Mary’s discipleship of the Lord must have begun long before Gabriel came to her; her heart had to be ready to receive the word he spoke to her so that her womb could receive the unspoken Word.  She had no plow and gear to burn in sacrifice.  Instead, she had to sacrifice a quiet, “normal” life and, in God’s time, to surrender her Son.  She initiated that process of surrender freely at Cana, when he protested it wasn’t yet his hour (John 2:4) and—good Jewish mother—she prodded him along, ready for whatever his hour would bring.  Then she faithfully stood with him when that hour culminated (John 19:25) and continued her discipleship by becoming mother to all his disciples (19:26-27).

St. John & the Virgin Mary at the Cross
(St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church,
Fredericksburg, Va.)

As mother she continues her care for all the disciples and continues to model discipleship to us, to model listening to, receiving, pondering, and obeying the Divine Word.  She puts her cloak, her mantle, over us so that we may be filled with the same Spirit that overshadowed her (Luke 1:35).  Amen.  So be it!