Monday - March 21, 2022
TODAY'S READINGS
MONDAY OF THE THIRD WEEK OF LENT
Lectionary: 237
2 Kgs 5:1-15ab
Naaman, the army commander of the king of Aram,
was highly esteemed and respected by his master,
for through him the LORD had brought victory to Aram.
But valiant as he was, the man was a leper.
Now the Arameans had captured in a raid on the land of Israel
a little girl, who became the servant of Naaman’s wife.
“If only my master would present himself to the prophet in Samaria,”
she said to her mistress, “he would cure him of his leprosy.”
Naaman went and told his lord
just what the slave girl from the land of Israel had said.
“Go,” said the king of Aram.
“I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”
So Naaman set out, taking along ten silver talents,
six thousand gold pieces, and ten festal garments.
To the king of Israel he brought the letter, which read:
“With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you,
that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
When he read the letter,
the king of Israel tore his garments and exclaimed:
“Am I a god with power over life and death,
that this man should send someone to me to be cured of leprosy?
Take note! You can see he is only looking for a quarrel with me!”
When Elisha, the man of God,
heard that the king of Israel had torn his garments,
he sent word to the king:
“Why have you torn your garments?
Let him come to me and find out
that there is a prophet in Israel.”
Naaman came with his horses and chariots
and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house.
The prophet sent him the message:
“Go and wash seven times in the Jordan,
and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean.”
But Naaman went away angry, saying,
“I thought that he would surely come out and stand there
to invoke the LORD his God,
and would move his hand over the spot,
and thus cure the leprosy.
Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar,
better than all the waters of Israel?
Could I not wash in them and be cleansed?”
With this, he turned about in anger and left.
But his servants came up and reasoned with him.
“My father,” they said,
“if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary,
would you not have done it?
All the more now, since he said to you,
‘Wash and be clean,’ should you do as he said.”
So Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times
at the word of the man of God.
His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
He returned with his whole retinue to the man of God.
On his arrival he stood before him and said,
“Now I know that there is no God in all the earth,
except in Israel.”
Responsorial Psalm 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4
R. (see 42:3) Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
As the hind longs for the running waters,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Athirst is my soul for God, the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Send forth your light and your fidelity;
they shall lead me on
And bring me to your holy mountain,
to your dwelling-place.
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Then will I go in to the altar of God,
the God of my gladness and joy;
Then will I give you thanks upon the harp,
O God, my God!
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Verse Before the Gospel Ps 130:5, 7
I hope in the LORD, I trust in his word;
with him there is kindness and plenteous redemption.
Gospel Lk 4:24-30
Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth:
“Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel
in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built,
to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.
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Expect the Unexpected
Is your soul "athirst" for the living God, like we read in today's responsorial psalm? Are you tired of waiting to "behold the face of God" (in other words, his friendly support up close and personal)? Are you spiritually or emotionally thirsty because it seems like God doesn't really care about you or isn't moving fast enough to resolve hardships?
We get thirsty when we haven't had enough to drink. In this life on earth, we will never fully quench our thirst for God, because it's only after death that we come face to face with God, and it's only after being completely purged of everything that's not of God that we are able to enter into the fullness of his goodness and love.
However, we can relieve some of our thirst here and now. In fact, we're probably much more thirsty than we need to be.
An unquenched thirst for God usually manifests itself in loneliness, despair, frustration, self-indulgence -- or any other feeling or behavior that's triggered by lacking what we need. And yet, as Christians who spend time every day with God, we should feel like we have everything we need. Why don't we?
We get a clue from today's first reading. Observe the behavior of the leper Naaman. God gave him the healing that he asked for, but at first Naaman didn't believe it because it was offered in an unexpected way.
Usually, when we think that God has abandoned us, what's really happened is that he's not giving us what we want the way we want it!
To see what God is doing and to receive everything that he wants to give us, we have to first get rid of our expectations. When dealing with God, we should expect the unexpected.
The people in the synagogue at Nazareth (in today's Gospel reading) had been waiting a very long time for the Messiah. They had been praying for his arrival for many generations. But they, too, did not recognize the answer to their prayers because of unmet expectations. The Messiah landed on their doorstep in quite an unexpected way.
How often we get angry, like those people did, because God's love and his answers to our prayers are not what we want the way we want it.
Like those people, we reject Jesus even while trying to find him. We assume "no, this can't be right" to what he's placing in front of us. By turning away and staying focused on whatever we're expecting, we say "no" to his gifts and blessings.
This is why our souls are parched. We need to spend time this Lent identifying and repenting of all the ways we say "no God, this can't be right" -- whether it's "no" to a Church teaching because we don't like it or "no" to a bad situation that doesn't end no matter how hard we pray.
We find our miracles when we expect the unexpected.
Today's Prayer
Heal me, Lord, of the hardness of my heart. Water it with Your love and may it become fertile soil to fully receive and grow in Your word. Amen.
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The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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