The main thread I find running through today’s readings is the age-old call for patience and prayer. It’s a tough order; a solution to our endless insistence that things get done the way we want them done . . . and fast! The message is there with Elijah in the book of Kings and in Jesus’ warning not to dismiss or belittle our brothers and sisters, though they are imperfect like us.
Consider St. Anthony of Padua, patron of lost objects, lost selves, patiently praying that the novice who left the order and decided to take Anthony’s treasured psalter with him, would return it. And he did, and he brought himself with it!
Or Elijah on Mt. Carmel, after three and a half years without rain, telling King Ahab to get down off the mountain because those longed-for rains were finally coming, as God promised. Elijah, his head between his knees, prays and waits for the rain, which comes indeed, refreshing the parched earth. And St. James, recalling this scene, tells us to be patient, “because the coming of the Lord is near” (Jas 5:8). Which means not judging one another, so that we will not be judged.
And Jesus reminds us that all wars start from within, in those hurts we won’t let go of until we’ve had our revenge. Jesus warns us of the harm even of insults we slide into our conversations—that fool, that nobody, that jerk. “No,” Jesus tells us, that’s where all our wars begin, isn’t it? Pray, then, for the patience to see beyond yourself, to begin to see the other.

Paul Mariani

Paul Mariani, professor emeritus of English at Boston College, is a poet, biographer, scholar, and critic. His most recent books of poems are Ordinary Time and All That Will Be New.