In today's first reading, 2 Kings 2: 1, 6-14, Elisha prepares to return to heaven and instructs Elijah, his constant companion and the one trained by him in the ways of the prophet, to stay behind and not follow him to the Jordan, where he will depart this life. Elijah emphatically says in response: "I will not leave you." Before departing, Elijah says to Elisha: "'Ask for whatever I may do for you, before I am taken from you." Elisha answered, 'May I receive a double portion of your spirit.' '...[I]f you see me taken up from you, your wish will be granted, otherwise not!'" Elisha witnessed Elijah's going up into heaven. When he could no longer see him, he "gripped his own garment and tore it in two." In grief he cried out: "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" He then struck the waters of the Jordan River with Elijah's mantel that had fallen from him as he "went up to heaven in a whirlwind." The water "divided and [Elijah] crossed over."
Elijah and Elisha, obviously, had an incredible relationship with each other! And in the end, Elisha asked, not for material advantages, but for "a double portion of [Elijah's] spirit," the spirit of a man whom he highly admired and respected and from whom he learned to serve the Lord above all and in all circumstances! May the relationship that you and I develop with Jesus be as strong as what Elijah and Elisha enjoyed with each other. And may we seek a spiritual inheritance, spiritual gains, from the Lord, not unnecessary material ones. May we yearn for Jesus' spirit as much as Elisha yearned for Elijah's.
That yearning will only develop in us to the extent that we know Jesus, spend time with Jesus, seek Jesus and cling to His words recorded in the Scriptures! To what extent am I, are you, doing that?
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