Monday of Week 3 of Lent: reflection

Theme: GOD ALSO WORKS THROUGH ORDINARY MEANS

Reading: 2 Kgs 5:1–15a

In today’s first reading, Naaman went to Elisha to ask to be healed of his leprosy. Did you notice that Naaman was disappointed that the healing process recommended for him by the prophet Elisha didn’t include some extraordinary or extra sensational spiritual gyration? He was expecting Elisha to do some of the things (to perform those signs) with which the people of our time rate or score someone as a great man or woman of God. In his frustration and disappointment, Naaman burst out saying: “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better that all the waters in Israel, could I not wash in them and be clean?”

Elisha had recommended that Naaman should go and wash himself seven times in the river Jordan. Going to wash himself was an act too simple for Naaman. Of course, he had been having a wonderful bath without seeing any positive results. Then, Jordan was a river that stood no chance in beauty and splendor when compared to the rivers that were common to Naaman. Yet, it was from the simple act of washing in a low-classed river Jordan that healed Naaman of his leprosy when he eventually heeded the instructions of the prophet.

Dear friends, let us not deride nor disobey priests who recommend prayers or spiritual exercises that we rate as ordinary or too simple when we approach them for solutions to our problems. Our solutions can come from those simple prayers and simple exercises if we follow them with obedience and minds wholly turned towards God. It has, however, become almost the normal in our world that people only obey or appreciate priests and pastors who recommend exercises that are unusual, unimaginable, cumbersome and even abnormal and ungodly. To many people, those who recommend such rigorous exercises are the real men and women of God.

How about the sensational spiritual gyrations that Naaman was expecting? Does our God really demand them before He answers our prayers? Our God does not answer prayers because we jumped up a thousand times and shouted alleluia a million times nor because our priest or pastor made some extra ordinary sensational spiritual gyrations, as we witness in many churches. Most times, those actions are designed to inject fear into people’s minds, keep them psychologically imprisoned in order to manipulate them.

Sometimes also, the big signs and extraordinary sensational spiritual gyrations that we desire to see before we acknowledge someone as a messenger of God or before we become a member of a Church do not count before God. God may not be present in a place where those things are seen as indicators of the His presence.

May Your new week be abundantly blessed. Amen

Fr Isaac Chima