During the Third Week of Lent (especially in cycles B and C when
the Gospel of the Samaritan Woman is not read on the Third Sunday of
Lent) optional Mass Texts are offered.
 |
“The Prophet Elisha and Naaman”
by Lambert Jacobsz, c. 1615 |
Readings for Monday of the Third
Week of Lent [1]
Readings from the Jerusalem
Bible [2]
Readings and
Commentary: [3]
Reading I: 2 Kings 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.”
-------------------------------------------
Commentary on 2 Kgs 5:1-15ab
This story of the conversion of Naaman through Elisha’s office as prophet
has some interesting historical and ritual material. First, it is ironic that
the king of Aram, which was an antagonist of Israel, would send one of his key
advisers to Israel. That is why the king of Israel tore his garments. He
assumed that Aram was making an unreasonable request in order to provoke
physical hostilities between the two countries.
Next, we see Elisha not coming out of his house to instruct Naaman
but sending word to him. He did so in part because to come into the presence of
one with leprosy could have caused him ritual impurity (see Leviticus 13-14). Clearly
Naaman did not know this, since he complained about it. Finally, the Jordan
River, from a hygienic perspective, is not as clean as the clear springs of
Damascus. It is, at the best of times, muddy. The requirement that Naaman
plunge (other translators say “dip” which has a different connotation [4])
himself into the water seven times is significant in that the number seven is,
in Hebrew numerology, the perfect number, symbolic of completeness. This would
also be in line with the ritual cleansing prescribed in Leviticus 14:8. The
lesson taught was that Naaman, washed clean of his transgressions (outwardly
expressed as leprosy) was given the salvation only the God of Israel could
provide (not some magical ritual performed by the prophet himself). The healing
accomplished was to bring Naaman to confess that there is no god but God (in
Israel).
-------------------------------------------
Responsorial Psalm: 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?
-------------------------------------------
Commentary on Ps 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4
Psalms 42 and 43 form a single continuous song. It is an
individual lament for a return to Jerusalem where God may be encountered in the
temple. The hind (female red deer) longing for water is used to provide
the allusion to baptism, bringing belief out of unbelief.
CCC: Ps 42:3 2112
-------------------------------------------
Gospel: Luke 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.
-------------------------------------------
Commentary on Lk 4:24-30
This Gospel passage places Jesus at his hometown speaking in the
synagogue. The people there were questioning his authority, since they knew him
as a child and knew his family. These verses give his response to their
challenge to his status and authority.
We understand why the people were upset when we consider that, in
his analogy explaining why he could accomplish no works from God to satisfy
them, he used Elijah going to a widow in Sidon (not in Israel, see 1 Kings 17:9ff), and
Elisha curing Naaman (a Syrian not an Israelite, see 2 Kings 5:1ff). This
would have placed Jesus on a par with the great prophets, blasphemy in the eyes
of his old neighbors. Perhaps even more upsetting to the people would have been
that their God would not reveal himself because of their lack of faith.
(Ironically, Jesus, who we know is God, was revealing himself. The people just
could not see it.)
-------------------------------------------
Reflection:
As we hear Jesus speak to his
friends and relatives in the synagogue at Nazareth, it is easy for us to
understand why Jesus is frustrated at their lack of faith. Here they are, people that had the honor of
growing up with him, knowing him as youth and man, yet they did not understand
his divine nature. They scoffed and
rejected his attempted revelation. In
fact, many of them probably thought he had, as they say, “gone off his
nut.” His experience with his eccentric
cousin John the Baptist, and his sabbatical in the desert immediately
following, must have caused him to come “unhinged.”
Jesus, of course, saw all of
this in their faces and heard what was behind their words. He would have felt intense sorrow, knowing
that because of this familiarity and presumed understanding, his own friends
and family would not be able to accept the great gift God had offered
them. An analogy might be if we were
able to invent a treatment that would cure any disease somehow, and then
offered it freely to those in our community hospital, but they would not accept
it because we did not have credentials as a pharmacist.
And what lesson do we take
away from the Gospel? Don’t we fall into
the same trap? Do we listen to those
around us with the attention we would pay to a prestigious expert on the
subject at hand? We commonly miss God’s
revelation because we do two things.
First, we judge the source, and if, in our opinion, that source is less
credible than the wisdom we suppose we have already amassed, we tune it out. We
ignore it. Second, we just plain don’t
listen. Our own voice gets in the way of
our auditory canals and we don’t hear what we should. This is especially true in, of all places,
prayer. We are so busy telling God what
we want that we don’t listen to his answers.
In the very truest sense,
this is exactly the sin those ancient Hebrews committed when Jesus spoke to
them in the synagogue. They were not
really listening. This then is the
lesson we take with us today. It is
rather complex and very difficult. First,
we must surrender our own pride and sense of superiority and listen intently to
those with whom we communicate (even our children). The word we hear may be life changing. Second, as a people of prayer, we must listen
to God’s response with our hearts, not simply bombard the Lord with our
words. Let that be our prayer today,
that our ears will be open that we might hear.
Pax
[1]
The picture is “The Prophet Elisha and Naaman” by Lambert Jacobsz, c. 1615.
[2]
S.S. Commemoratio[3]
The readings are taken from the New American Bible, with the exception of the
psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for
English in Liturgy (ICEL). This republication is not authorized by USCCB and is
for private use only.
[4]
The Word Biblical Commentary, 2 Kings, Volume 13 (Word, Inc), 65. Also,
The Navarre
Bible, Joshua-Kings (Scepter Publishers, Princeton, NJ, © 2003), 534.
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