Saint Matthew's Church A Roman Catholic Community

Saint Matthew's Church
A Roman Catholic Community

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Weekend Mass Schedule
Saturday Vigil at 5:00 PM
Sunday at 8:30 and 10:30 AM
Full Schedule of Services
Weekly Bulletins
Ministry Schedule

Pastor's Weekly Message

Our first reading on the Nineteenth Sunday of the Year is a short piece from the first Book of Kings. The passage recounts the prophet Elijah's journey as he was escaping persecution by King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Ahab was a Jew and Jezebel was a pagan and a worshiper of the God Baal. For a time their marriage brought peace to Israel with the surrounding pagan kingdoms. Elijah was opposed to this marriage and to the compromises King Ahab made with the pagan kingdoms. Elijah wanted a much more rigorous and faithful worship of the One God of Israel, YHWH. Our passage for this Sunday shows Elijah at a very low point in his life. He wants to die. He is tired of speaking God's word to the nation and not having them listen and obey. But as he is fleeing Jezebel and Ahab and going to the mountain of God, Horeb, as God has demanded, Elijah becomes exhausted and wants to go no further. But as our passage says: an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat. The passage ends by telling us that Elijah strengthened by that food, ...walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

What our reading does not tell us is how Elijah, when he was young, did amazing miracles and signs to show the awesome power of God. When you read that part of this book you get the clear sense that Elijah is enjoying this great power that God has given him. I wonder if he has gotten so intoxicated by God's power that when he becomes exhausted in our reading he believes he has been abandoned by God and so has nothing else to live for? I wonder that because of what happens to Elijah when he gets to Horeb, the mountain cave to which God leads him. Do you remember that story? God speaks to Elijah and tells him to come to the edge of the cave. Then God sends a mighty wind, but we are told that God is not in the wind. God sends an earthquake. But we are told that God is not in the earthquake. God sends a mighty fire, but God is not in fire. After the fire came a gentle whispering sound (some scholars say that a better translation of the Hebrew is "silence" for a "tiny whispering sound"). God was in the silence and Elijah fell to the ground and worshiped.

Don't we all want God to work in great power and mighty signs? But so often God will be found in the quiet little whispers and in the silence. God will be found in the small and most unlikely places and people like the check out person at Hannaford or the lunch monitor at school or the homeless man who wishes us blessings on a city street as we rapidly walk by hardly even noticing him or the quiet moments before we fall asleep. For this ability to bear the journey of our own lives, like Elijah, we need the food of angels. We call that the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus. This is our food for our journey to the mountain of God so that we too might know God in our lives in the tiny whispering sound.

Fr. Chris