There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah

MONDAY 16 MARCH (Lk 4,24-30)

Jesus is in the synagogue of Nazareth. He reads a prophecy of Isaiah and proclaims that those words he uttered today were fulfilled: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” Lk 4,18-19). Those who are present in the synagogue want Jesus to testify with signs and wonders what He said. They do not see any release of prisoners and neither that the blind acquire or regain their sight. Not even the oppressed are not set free. What was before the reading of the prophecy and what is after is the same thing and there is no difference. Blind before and blind after. Oppressed before and oppressed after.

Jesus replies that the prophet is not sent to perform miracles, but to announce the Word of God. If he said that today those words were fulfilled, today they were fulfilled. Besides, between the saying of the Word of God by the prophet and its fulfillment time has always passed and will pass by. Thus the Deuteronomy: “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen. This is exactly what you requested of the Lord, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let us not again hear the voice of the Lord, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘This was well said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him. If any man will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.’ “If you say to yourselves, ‘How can we recognize an oracle which the Lord has spoken?’, know that, even though a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if his oracle is not fulfilled or verified, it is an oracle which the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously, and you shall have no fear of him” (Dt 18,15-22). But Jesus demonstrates the truth of his words by appealing to both the prophet Elijah and Elisha. Elijah multiplied the bread for a widow of Sarepta in Sidon. He did not multiply it for the sons of his people. Elisha has healed Naaman, the Syrian, a foreigner of leprosy. He has not purified any son of Israel. Faith does not come from the signs that the prophet does. It comes from the Word that he announces. Jesus is revealing to them that he is a true prophet sent by God. He is a true prophet precisely because he is making neither signs, nor miracles, nor wonders. They must trust Him and believe in His Word.

And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

What Jesus teaches in the synagogue of Nazareth is valid for us and for the whole world. The Word of Jesus is worthy of faith because it is uttered by the Prophet of the living God. It was not uttered by a prophet, but by the Prophet before whom every other prophet prostrates himself in adoration, because he recognizes him and confesses him as his God and Lord. Today our faith in the Word of Jesus is failing. Not only is every word of man equated to his, but it is also given it the place that is only his. What are the results? Instead of truth, lies govern. Instead of light, darkness dominates. In place of the Son of God we have raised man. It will be understood that in doing so the world is condemned to remain in falsehood, in darkness, in idolatry and in widespread immorality. But the disciples of Jesus are responsible for this debacle. It is they who are operating this abominable substitution.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that our word never replaces the Word of Jesus.