9781644135945

The Easter Cycle
Prayer
Have regard to the desires of the lowly, we beseech Thee, O almighty God, and stretch forth the
right hand of Thy majesty in our defense. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Monday
Naaman, a heathen officer of the king of Syria, comes to the prophet Eliseus and humbly submits
himself to the direction of the servant of God. He bathes in the Jordan, and while sojourning
in Israel (that is, in the Church) he is cleansed of his leprosy (Epistle). While the heathen finds
a cure in Israel, the people of Israel, the inhabitants of Nazareth, reject the “prophet” (Christ),
and seek to put him to death. The chosen people reject their Savior, and we, the Gentiles, are
called to Christ and salvation. Such thoughts fill our minds as we gather at the church of a holy
pope, Mark, to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice.
“He came unto His own and His own received him not” ( Jn 1:11). Christ visited His home
in Nazareth, where He was well known. Since the time He began His public life, the people of
Nazareth had been hearing of the miraculous cures He had worked in Capharnaum and in the
other cities of Galilee. But his fellow townsmen ridiculed His miraculous power. Why does He
not perform in Nazareth the wonderful things He has been performing in the other cities of Israel?
He answers their mockery, “Amen I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in His own country. . . .
There were many widows in the days of Elias in Israel, . . . and to none of them was Elias sent but
to Sarephta of Sidon, to a widow woman. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of
Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian.” They understand
very well the indictment implied in these words, and they become very angry. They drive Him
out of the city, and leading Him to a high hill on which their city was built, they seek to cast Him
headlong over the cliff. “But He, passing through the midst of them, went His way” (Gospel).
Israel, and particularly Nazareth, did not recognize the time of grace. They had only a
shallow ridicule and a bitter hatred for Christ, and sought to dispose of Him. “But He . . . went
His way.” Christ will not force His grace upon those who do not wish to receive it. Through
their own fault “the children of the kingdom shall be cast out” (Mt 8:12). Here again the liturgy
earnestly admonishes us not to turn away from Christ and His call to penance, but to be
converted to do penance and to prepare for Easter.
“There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was
cleansed but Naaman the Syrian.” (Gospel). The kingdom of God slips through the fingers of
the proud, the unbelieving, the self-satisfied, and falls into the hands of him who believes and
seeks God. Naaman, the heathen, longed for a new, vigorous life. He came from far off, from
Damascus to Samaria, and humbled himself by submitting to the directions of Eliseus and
by descending into the waters of the Jordan. His faith, his humility, and his submission to the
prophet bring him the cure of his leprosy. “There were many lepers in Israel in the days of Eliseus
the prophet, and none of them was cleansed.” The heathens believed and received salvation;
the Israelites lost the kingdom of God through their unbelief. The inheritance that was the
portion of the chosen people, is offered to us who are members of the Church, but only on
condition that we have faith and submit humbly to the teaching and commandments of Christ
and His Church. We shall be saved only if we are conscious of our unworthiness and frailty, and
247