Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Collect for Promoting Harmony

 Lectionary: 359

Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning,
and bread and meat in the evening,
and he drank from the stream.

Our Christian tradition is filled with paintings of Elijah's ravens as they provided ample bread for him to live for "some time "by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan." 

The story reminds us not only of God's providence but also of the small wafers we bring to the altar each day for consecration. They don't appear very impressive, but we will bow in worship before them. It's a charming story, touched with humor, inspiring and encouraging. 

How many times have we asked for an abundant supply of something and received only enough? And barely enough at that! We expected a crowd of people to come to this religious event and only a handful of the usual suspects appeared. We expected a great response to this promotional campaign and the turnout was tepid. And yet there was enough, and we could think of no better alternative, and so we carried on. 

Alexander Pope's "...hope which springs eternal within the human breast" remained and so here we are. 

I've thought of that often lately; that quality we have of still being here. The story begins with the Jews, the descendants of Abraham whom the Lord chose. We know little about the Patriarch and his wife Sarah; and what little we know is entirely in the Bible. There is no historical evidence for him outside the Book, but archaeologists have validated the existence of nomadic merchants in the Fertile Crescent between Mesopotamia and Egypt. The story is not implausible; it is not "just a myth." 

And yet it is mythological in the sense that it begins with God's promise and we still live by God's promises. And we worship the same God who spoke to Abraham and amused Sarah with a son whose name means laughter. We have known that kind of laughter when our most unlikely expectations were fulfilled. 

Ravens provide bread for Elijah
Paolo Fiammingo (circa 1585 AD)

And so, when we read that God said to Elijah, 

"Leave here, go east and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. You shall drink of the wadi, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.

we say, "That sounds about right." We've done similar things because it seemed that was where the Lord was leading us; and it worked out okay. 

Couples get married despite the misgivings of their family and friends and, forty years later, discover they're still married and not at all disappointed. 

Churches are built and cities established where reasonable people thought they could never work out. And they're still there. 

We're still here. After the "changes" of the Second Vatican Council, which weren't so great after all. After the terrible scandal which amused the news media throughout the world, when priests were ashamed to appear in public. And we're still awaiting "a rebirth of wonder" in our Catholic religion, and the arrival of "the Catholic century" which always seems about to happen. 

We're still here. Perhaps that's because, 

Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,

and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something,

so that no human being might boast before God. (1 Cor 1:26-29)