A Commentary and Reflection on the Readings for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: 1 Kings 19:4-8, Ephesians 4:30 – 5:2, and John 6:41-51.
The Liturgy of the Catholic Mass is the True Path to Conversion
Conversion is one of the most challenging things we face because we lack control over the process. A popular phrase is that one must ‘control the controllables,’ meaning that the best way to determine outcomes in our lives is to seize control and manipulate all the variables within our reach. The idea of leaving God the opportunity for minimal participation in our lives is the definition of the vanity of self-determination. On the contrary, cooperating with God and responding to His grace is not controlling the controllables as if God could be controlled; rather, it is the superhuman exercise of saying ‘yes’ to what we can affirm. So, in conversion, we cooperate with God’s gift of faith to say ‘yes’ – not to our self-driven determination, but to His perfect desire for our life.
Even some of our Catholic priests struggle with this vanity when they deign to try to take control of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass by unnecessarily inserting themselves and their words into the Mass rather than humbly proclaiming the words and exhibiting the gestures given to them. There is no greater gift of converting the hardened heart than the Divine Symphony of the Mass, but when we make maximum room for our efforts and leave minimal space for God’s hand in the Mass, we have confessed to God that we are in control, not Him.
While some of the images found in sacred Scripture that are commonly associated as recurring motifs of God’s provision through trial, conversion, and suffering include the desert, water, fire, and whenever we see the number ‘forty,’ one of the least common, the ‘broom tree’ appears in today’s First Reading for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B from 1 Kings 19:4-8. The broom tree, native to the Middle East, particularly in desert areas, is known for its ability to grow in harsh conditions, providing shelter and protection from heat and other elements due to its wide canopy and low-lying branches. In 30:4-7, Job speaks about how impoverished people eat the broom tree’s bitter and nearly inedible roots to emphasize how far some men have fallen. Psalms 120:4 mentions God’s wrath is like a warrior’s arrow sharpened by a broom tree. Lastly, Numbers 33:18-19 states that on their way from Sinai to Kadesh, the Israelites camped in Rithmah, also known as the “place of the brooms,” for one night.
In the context of today’s reading, the prophet Elijah, having fled for his life after Jezebel promised him death for slaying all of the prophets of Baal, went a day’s journey into the wilderness until he came to a solitary broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death: “Enough, LORD! Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” The broom tree provided shade but not food, symbolizing our mere human capacity. Broom trees also typically grow in clusters or thickets, but a solitary broom tree reminds us of what happens when we distance ourselves from God and His Church – we are alone to suffer alone. Prefacing today’s First Reading, 1 Kings 18:46 says, “The hand of the Lord was on Elijah.” However, something made Elijah stop cooperating with God’s grace and believing in His promise. Instead of continuing the journey, Elijah chose to take control of the process; he chose the easier path by settling for a bit of shade, thinking it would be enough just to die there. So, the Lord sent an angel to provide the prophet with bread and water, twice instructing Elijah to eat it. After the second time, the text states, “He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.”
In just this short reading, we see the prophet Elijah go from journeying to the wilderness to wishing his death under a broom tree to a journey of forty days and forty nights. Yes, when life becomes difficult, and it seems like we are just running from suffering and into suffering or from persecution to trial and back again, everything seems out of our control, and we begin to design ways to make sense of our suffering by trying to take charge of it. Yet, what if when things are not going our way, we were to tell ourselves, this is God’s way of protecting me from myself and my enemies, leading me to a new place, and curing my blindness? What if ‘things not going my way’ (suffering) was another word for ‘conversion’?
Conversion is a challenging process not only because we want to control it but also due to the emotions that the Apostle Paul mentioned to the Church in Ephesus in our Second Reading from Ephesians 4:30 – 5:2: “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice,” as these emotions grieve the Holy Spirit; they create barriers to conversion. These are the emotions linked in some way to everyone who has betrayed Jesus, the Holy Eucharist, and turned away from Him. Whether it is bitterness from feeling deceived by people in the Church for not meeting their expectations or from personal harm, these emotions only drive us to seek control of the process. These emotions have led some to abandon their Catholic faith and seek refuge under a broom tree. Regardless of how we label these broom trees—be it Protestant churches, paganism, or the various forms of atheism—they all lead to self-determination.
Another emotion that grieves the Holy Spirit’s work of converting us closer to Christ Jesus is skepticism. In today’s Gospel Reading from John 6:41-51, the Jews chose the emotion of skepticism over the divine gift of faith. Skepticism was the easiest of the two paths because all it required was the acceptance of familiarity over the unknown. It was easier to believe that Jesus was exactly who they were familiar with – the son of Joseph and Mary, rather than Him being more significant than the manna their ancestors ate in the desert. Similarly, it is easier to be skeptical about the consecrated Bread and Wine at the Mass being anything other than what we are familiar with. It looks like bread, so it must be bread. It tastes like wine, so it must be wine. Skepticism and familiarity grieve the Holy Spirit because they leave minimal space for faith and for us to offer God His due reverence.
The liturgy of the Catholic Mass is the true path of conversion because right liturgical worship is ordered to the receptivity of God’s hand.
This is just one way the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us on how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
