Daily Meditation for March 4, 2024

The Old Testament Scripture reading today could be called Great Expectations. A great military officer, Naaman, a leper, seeks a cure. He is successful in his career but is afflicted with a dreaded disease. A slave girl advises him to bathe in the Jordan River, sacred to the people of Israel. Naaman seems not to have known of Yahweh or the special relationship between God and the Israelites. Yet he listens to this slave girl, and putting aside his reluctance for her advice, bathes in the Jordan and is cured. Naaman is rewarded for his faith, his trust in this unknown God. It was a humiliating move for him to bathe in a river strange to him, yet he does so. We are sometimes called to act in a manner not clear to us or even unpalatable. Does our faith and trust carry us onward?

By Carol Berg, OSB