The Prophet Elijah and Naaman

In the book of 2 Kings there’s a story of a famous military leader of Syria called Naaman. Naaman had leprosy and heard from a young Israelite girl of the power of God through the prophet Elisha.

Desperate to find healing, he sent silver, gold, and gifts to the king of Israel and begged the great prophet to heal him. Elisha responded through a messenger with a simple demand: Go and wash seven times in the Jordan and you will be healed.

Naaman scoffed. It was too small—too meaningless. Naaman was prepared to give great wealth to be healed. But he found it difficult to accept that healing could come from such a small act in a river less majestic than those of his homeland.

It was only after one of his servants pleaded with him that Naaman relented. If Naaman was willing to do great things, the servant reasoned, why not do something small?

So Naaman did something small, and upon rising from the waters of the Jordan the seventh time his flesh became, as the Scriptures say, like a “little child.” At that moment, Namaan returned to Elisha to declare his faith and devotion to the one true God.

How much like Naaman are we? We wish to offer God everything when our hearts become swelled with devotion, with gratitude, with fear, or with desperation. To heal a sick relative, we promise a pilgrimage. To convert a loved one, we endure penances. For our own intentions we offer Masses, mortifications, novenas, chaplets, candles, and any number of other devotions to our Lord and His saints.

Those can all be beautiful and good gifts for beautiful and good ends. But what would you give for the best end of all? What would you give for an eternity with God in the happiness of heaven?

Like Naaman, we can imagine the cost of such a reward must be monumental. We can deceive ourselves into believing that an end so great demands great sacrifice too. Perhaps, sometimes, it does.

But as Elisha sent a messenger to Naaman, so God sent a messenger to tell us, to our shock, that little was required.

That messenger was His mother, and her request was revealed on a December day in 1925: “On the first Saturday of five consecutive months, go to Confession and receive Holy Communion. Recite five decades of the Rosary and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary with the intention of making reparation to me.”[1]

Her promise in return for such a small sacrifice of time and such a small act of faith was nothing short of everything. “I promise to assist the hour of death with all the graces necessary for salvation.”

[1] Each of these devotions must be done with the intention to make reparations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is generally accepted that one may go to confession within 8 days of the First Saturday and that the 15 minutes of meditation is in addition to praying the five decades of the Rosary.

The mother of God herself offered to hold our hands on the threshold of death, to guide our souls from this world to the next, into the loving arms of her beloved Son, if only we spend a few hours here on Earth consoling her, thinking of her, loving her.

Like Naaman, so often we want to do great things for God. But that’s not how it works. God, in His mercy, asks us to do little things for Him. And when we are humble and devoted and strong enough to do what is little, He then does great things in us. He makes us capable of being in heaven, of receiving Him.

If you have not done the First Saturdays devotion, be like Naaman. Accept God’s offer and His promise on His terms, trusting that His yoke really is that easy and His burden really is that light.

If you have already completed the First Saturday devotion, do it again—not for the promises Our Lady made, but for love of Her and Her Son.

For when we are done, making our small sacrifices with the faith of a little child, we too shall be set free from the sinful leprosies of this life and rejoice with faith and devotion before our God.