Taking a Journey With Elijah, the Prophet

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.  Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”  Then he was afraid, and he arose and went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.  But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree; and he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers.”  And he lay down and slept under a broom tree; and behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.”  And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.  And he ate and drank, and lay down again.  And the angel of the Lord came again a second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, else the journey will be too great for you.”  And he arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.^[1]

            When I first read 1 Kings and the story of Elijah, I found this passage bewildering.  If we back up to the beginning of Chapter 18, we find that Elijah is hated by the king, the king desiring to kill him.  Nevertheless, Elijah sends for the king and awaits his arrival.  Afterwards, he faces down all the Baal priests and slays them.  However, when the queen threatens him, he flees in fear.  It is incongruous to say the least.  If we consider it carefully however, we see that it looks that way only if we consider it in the historical perspective.  If we look at the passage, looking for Christ and the Church, it becomes more beneficial to us.  Therefore, let us travel, take a journey, with the prophet, Elijah.

            King Ahab went to Jezreel; and, the hand of the Lord being on Elijah, Elijah ran before the king to the entrance of Jezreel.^[2]  “Jezreel” means God sows.^[3]  In this, we see the Incarnation of our Lord.  Where we have Elijah running before the king, we can understand John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ.  The slaying of the Baal priests can represent the preaching of John: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”^[4]  The slaying of the Baal priests, who were leading the people astray, was to make his paths straight.  Today, the teaching of the Church and its people living holy lives is also making His paths straight, preparing for His second Coming.  Today, our lives in this world is the wilderness, and the Church and its inhabitants are preparing the way for our Lord’s second Advent.  As Elijah and John the Baptist did, we are “running” before the King.

            Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”  Now, we know that Jezebel was an evil queen.  Nonetheless, we need to make Scripture to apply to ourselves.  As we have just applied the Baal priests to ourselves by saying that we need to “slay” them in preparing the way for our Lord’s second Advent, we must ask, “What are the Baal priests in our lives?”  That, primarily, is going to be the sins in our lives.  However, it goes much deeper than that.  We sin because we give in to our thoughts, sins, feelings, and passions which are not aligned to the will of God.  In that Jesus is the Head of the Church, the Church desires that our will (that which is not aligned to the will of God) be made as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow, being likened unto Jesus’ will in the Garden: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.”^[5]  Just as Jesus was asking the Father to make His will his will, we need to do likewise.  We do not have the power nor strength to do this on our own.  Also, it is not a one-time prayer.  It must be our continuous prayer.  Normally, this is going to be a slow, progressive process.  It will continue as long as we are praying, as long as it is our desire—which is our cooperation with the grace of God in this matter.  When we stop praying, it is probably due to the desire no longer being there.  The suffering we undergo by this being our desire is the “slaying of the Baal priests,” which is our will to please ourselves.  It is a fearful thing to desire to not please ourselves.  We treasure our thoughts, our opinions, our feelings, and our pleasures; and it is those things which cause us to sin.  In other words, whether we recognize it or not, we sin because we love to sin.  We do nothing against our will.

            For example, you have some money.  It is your will to keep that money or use it for a purpose you desire.  Someone holds you up at gunpoint, commanding that you turn over the money to him.  At that time, it becomes your will to turn over the money, or you retain your previous will and refuse, regardless of the consequences.  Whatever we do, we do in accordance with our will.  For this reason, we pray that God changes our will to correspond with his.  We see this occurring with St. Peter.  First, we see it when he denies Christ (cf. Lk 22:54-62).  We see it again in Antioch (cf. Gal 2:11-21) when St. Paul withstood him for acting the hypocrite.  However, in the end, God strengthened him to endure martyrdom.  Even when it comes to Jesus, who is God and Man, he did not depend upon his own strength but prayed to the Father, not my will but yours be done; and what occurs as a result of his prayer?  To strengthen him, an angel from heaven appeared to him.  He was in such agony, and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.^[6]  As a man, the Son of God would not put trust in himself but looked to the Father.  May God give us the grace to do likewise.  As Elijah did, we need to flee, but we need to flee from our wills.  How do we accomplish that?

            Then he was afraid, and he arose and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah.  From St. Ambrose, we learn that Beersheba signifies the mysteries and sacraments of the divine and holy Law.^[7]  In other words, we flee to the Church, to the Scriptures and the Sacraments.  It is from the Word of God that we gain Wisdom, and it is from the grace of God in the Sacraments that we gain strength.

            But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree.  From St. Methodius, we learn: “The bramble (or, broom tree) commends chastity, for the bramble and the agnos is the same tree.  By some it is called bramble, by others agnos.  Perhaps it is because the plant is akin to virginity that it is called bramble and agnos; bramble, because of its strength and firmness against pleasures; agnos, because it always continues chaste.  Hence, the Scripture relates that Elijah, fleeing from the face of the woman Jezebel, at first came under a bramble, and there, having been heard, received strength and took food; signifying that to him who flies from the incitements of lust, and from a woman—that is, from pleasure—the tree of chastity is a refuge and a shade, ruling men from the coming of Christ, the chief of virgins.” ^[8]

            …and he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers.”  Fr. George Haydock, in his commentary on this passage, states: “Elias requested to die, not out of impatience or pusillanimity”—that is, timidity, fear, cowardliness, nervousness, hesitation—"but out of zeal against sin; and that he might no longer be witness of the miseries of his people, and the war they were waging against God and his servants.”^[9]  We need this same zeal towards our wills, desires, feelings, and passions.  We are no better than those who die in sin.  They, also, were living in accord with their wills.  When we cry out because of our desire to live in accord with God’s will and not our own, God goes to work.

            And he lay down and slept under a broom tree; and behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.”  And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.  And he ate and drank, and lay down again.  And the angel of the Lord came again a second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, else the journey will be too great for you.  And he arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.”  In the case of Moses, we do not have this scenario when he fasted forty days and nights.  Perhaps, it was because he was with the Lord.^[10]  We also do not see this in the case of our Lord, Jesus.  Perhaps, it is because he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.^[11]  In the case of Elijah, God is preparing him for the journey.  This is also what is occurring in our situations: Although we are on the journey, God is preparing us for the ultimate day when we cross the threshold of time and eternity.  Of course, the meal is not the sumptuous meal we may desire; the meal is the wholesome meal of humility and frugality, the Eucharist.  In the Catechism of the Council of Trent, we find these words: “Finally, to comprise all the advantages and blessings of this sacrament in one word, it must be taught that the holy Eucharist is most efficacious towards the attainment of eternal glory; for it is written, Whoso [eats] my flesh, and [drinks] my blood, [has] eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day (cf., Jn 6:54); that is to say, by the grace of this sacrament, men enjoy the greatest peace and tranquility of conscience during this life; and, when the hour of departing from this world shall have arrived, they, like another [Elijah], who in the strength of the cake baked on the hearth, walked to Horeb, the mount of God (cf. 1 Ki 19:6, 8), invigorated by the strengthening influence of this [heavenly food], will ascend to unfading glory and never ending bliss.”^[12]  Thus, ends our journey with the Elijah, the prophet.

            We do not need to recall much about this passage.  All we need to do is remember three things: 1) We are our own worst enemy, 2) pray that God’s will be done, not ours, and 3) recall that, in God’s Word and the Sacraments—especially, the Eucharist—in conjunction with our desire, our cooperation with God’s grace, this is transpiring—slowly, but surely.           We must not despair and give up because we may not see “fruit” quickly.  Patience and perseverance are the keys.  Always be steady, endure suffering.^[13]  He who endures to the end will be saved.^[14]  It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.^[15]  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.^[16]  To see how this might look in action, let us remember the prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy

O divine master, grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

            This is extremely difficult.  We can only do it by God’s grace, with us continually requesting this of him.  If we forget, let us confess, repent, and start again.  If we persevere in this, this is not doubt that God will accomplish this in us.

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^[1] Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), 1 Ki 19:1–8.

^[2] Ibid., 1 Ki 18:45–46.

^[3] Stelman Smith and Judson Cornwall, The exhaustive dictionary of Bible names, 1998, 145.

^[4] Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), Mt 3:3.

^[5] New American Bible, Revised Edition., (Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011), Lk 22:42.

^[6] Ibid., Lk 22:43–44.

^[7] Ambrose of Milan, St. Ambrose: Select Works and Letters, 1896, 10, 468.

^[8] Methodius of Olympus, Fathers of the Third Century: Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius, 1886, 6, 348–349.

^[9] George Leo Haydock, Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary, (New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859), 1 Ki 19:4.

^[10] Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), Ex 34:28.

^[11] Ibid., Mt 4:1–2.

^[12] Catholic Church, The Catechism of the Council of Trent, (London: George Routledge and Co., 1852), 240.

^[13] Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), 2 Ti 4:5.

^[14] Ibid., Mt 10:22.

^[15] Ibid., Heb 12:7–8.

^[16] Ibid., 2 Co 1:3–4.