Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
(I Kings 18:41-46; Matthew 5:20-26)
The seven sacraments use the most ordinary of objects to relate God’s presence. Water, bread, wine, oil, the human body: one does not have to go far to find the stuff that conveys eternal life. Similarly in the first reading God’s work is manifested in the simplest of forms on the horizon.
Elijah’s servant spies a wisp of a cloud in the distance. It seems hardly probably that it will produce the rain that the earth craves at the time. But just as the Lord speaks later in the saga of Elijah through a gentle breeze, the cloud grows into a thunderhead that revives the parched land.
We should not expect God to approach us in grandeur. Indeed, it is much more characteristic of Him to come to us humbly. We faithfully wait on Him by keeping His commandments and speaking to Him in prayer.
