19th Sunday in ordinary time. Today’s readings: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:2-9; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51.
Jean Grosjean (1912-2006), a former priest and prisoner of war, poet and exegete, revisits the story of Elijah the Prophet, in the meditative poetic prose Élie. The story opens with an inert prophet, “dozing under the trees. The angel of the bower was casting the shadow of the leaves on his bare skin. The angel’s gentle breathing caused the shadows to traverse his eyelids, but Elijah did not open his eyes. Elijah was irritated, the angel, though, was not frightened.”
Grosjean’s Elijah is a wanderer, searching for rest, quiet and peace. To accomplish his mission as God’s messenger to King Ahab, he takes his time, as much as the King who left him waiting a whole night for an appointment. Elijah’s journey “was full of long diversions, as he loved to see heaven rest on the edge of the world”. He doesn’t even seem enthusiastic to prophesy, making “his way through the city, across haunting streets”. Once arrived at the palace he nonchalantly informs the King there won’t be any rain “and withdraws without joy”. Gone is the fiery prophet, who brought down kings and queens, the advocate of justice and righteousness, dreaded by false prophets whom he chases.
Grosjean tells us that “Elijah had to leave his retreat, but he was not to fall into the King’s hands, nor allow the king to regulate the seasons [of the heart]. Rain and shine are the mansions of the soul: There, God convenes the soul to his banquets. This is what kings are jealous of.”
Elijah is the mystic prophet who sheds tears, as he is connected to all, and to whom is given to hear in anticipation Jesus’s last cry: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” as he learns that El is the God of soundless otherness. He learns this at the apex of his prophetic career which left him a melancholic fugitive in the desert, desperately pleading with God, like an underdog, to end his life.
It is only when our life is transformed in [Christ’s own life] that we can live in fullness of life, passing it on to the world
Jean-Yves Masson notes that this is conceivably the Elijah image which caught the imagination of 20th century literature and art, as perhaps it mirrors the contemporary “spiritual distress and historic tragedies”, as much as our passive helpless acceptance of the world as it stands, with all its complexities and issues.
Often we find ourselves lacking in strength to look up to transformative high ideals and instead, when challenged to be catalysts of change, opt to give in to demotivation. Today’s liturgy calls us out from this defeatist attitude, encouraging us instead to imitate God who in Jesus Christ committedly handed himself over to bring new life to the world.
In the letter to the Ephesians the Apostle warns against “grieving the Holy Spirit of God with which you were sealed for the day of redemption” and encourages believers to remove “all bitterness” and condescending malicious tendencies, to instead live in the love taught to us by Christ in compassion, kindness and forgiveness.
The psalmist encourages us to “look” to and “seek” God in our distress, learning from the example set before us by the Lord.
In the Gospel, Jesus, the Lord, presents himself as the one who “comes down from heaven”, humbly and unpretentiously making of himself nourishment for humanity. If only we were to accept!
Amid a world running fatally after power, greed, desolation and cynicism, Jesus points to the one and only antidote leading to life everlasting: humility. In today’s Gospel, it unfolds in four steps: 1) being drawn by God to Christ; 2) being taught by God; 3) beholding God; 4) consuming the bread coming from heaven: Jesus Christ’s own life. It is only when our life is transformed in his own that we can live in fullness of life, passing it on to the world.