Elijah and John the Baptist | Bandera

Elijah and John the Baptist

Fr. Dan De Los Angeles |December 10,2016
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Elijah and John the Baptist

Fr. Dan De Los Angeles - December 10, 2016 - 12:10 AM

December 10, 2016
Saturday, 2nd
Week of Advent
1st Reading: Sir 48:1-4, 9-11
Gospel: Mt 17:9a, 10-13

As they were coming down the mountainside, the disciples then asked Jesus, “Why do the teachers of the Law say that Elijah must come first?” And Jesus answered, “So it is: first comes Elijah to set everything as it has to be. But I tell you, Elijah has already come and they did not recognize him, but treated him as they pleased. And they will also make the Son of Man suffer.” Then the disciples understood that Jesus was referring to John the Baptist.

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life
Experience)

Elijah was a prophet in Israel in the 9th century BCE. He raised the dead, brought fire down from the sky, and ascended into heaven by a whirlwind (2Kings 2:1, 11). Based on a prophecy in Malachi, many Jews await up till today Elijah’s return to announce the coming of the Messiah. This explains why they cannot accept Jesus. But Elijah already returned in the person of John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11-15)! But John was too simple to be Elijah whom they expected to return on a chariot of fire. John was a meek voice in the desert crying out “Prepare the way of the Lord”.

We recognize God’s handiworks readily in the spectacular but reluctantly in the regular. Consider the case of the sun reportedly seen dancing decades ago from a hill in Carcar, Cebu. People trooped to that hill like an ant line. Funds poured in substantially, enough to build a shrine and to erect a big statue of Mary. But the number of pilgrims dwindled even before the shrine was completed because the sun danced no more. Now only serious devotees frequent the place. The curious ones are gone somewhere.

“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last”, wrote Blaise Pascal in “Pensees”.He wasn’t even talking of average minds but of “great minds”. While curiosity is a good driving force for great learning at the level of science it is a lousy handmaid at the level of the spirit. Curiosity at the level of science moves one to create. But at the spiritual level you don’t create; you grow. Growth can be painful – something curiosity cannot sustain. What you need is genuine faith.

While spectacular things are not absolutely alien to God’s manner of self revelation, God’s ways are often small, insignificant, and even hidden from the curious whose eyes are trained only to recognize the spectacular. This led the Jews to utter loss. In their expectation that Elijah would come back on chariots of fire to announce the coming of the Messiah, they failed to recognize God’s visitation. -(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM., MAPM., MMExM., REB., Email: [email protected].
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