26/06/2022

I wonder what twelve yoke of oxen is. Elisha does not immediately follow God's call to prophetical holiness delivered by Elisha. He wants to perform his filial duties but Elisha's mysterious rebuke, "What did I do to you?" is enough for him to immediately accept and abandon his worldly goods and source of wealth. He sacrifices a pair of oxen and uses the wooden plough as a fire to roast them, sharing the meat with his men. Slaughtering the oxen and calling his men must have taken some time but finally he gets up to become Elisha's servant thus devoting his life to God.

St Paul knows that we all know the needs of ourselves before anything. We are first guided by our selfish needs. As babies we all cried for food and attention. Our first glimpse of love comes from the way our mothers' ministered to our needs. We all have to struggle against our infantile selfishness and learn that Jesus has shown us that to be truly Human we must put Father, Son and Holy Spirit first in everything and then treat our neighbour and our enemy with the same, if not more, care than we treat ourselves.

Jesus calls but we can all find justifiable reasons to resist. Honouring father and mother is a duty given to us by God. The totally perfect example of sonship tells us to let "our dead bury the dead". The one who claimed this dutiful reason for not following did not have a decaying corpse to deal with but a duty that had to be performed in due time. Jesus calls me now; he calls us all now. Is this thought and  prayer the best I can offer up to him?

Dear Lord you know the limits of my humanity; you know the weakness of my spirit; you know the misuse of the freedom given to me. Am I sincerely looking towards your eternity or becoming self absored and self-satsified? Help me with your grace. May Mary who first loved Jesus with the maternal warmth experienced only by all mothers share her love and the love of all the saints with the sinful and suffering people of this world.