Wednesday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

2 Kings 2:1, 6-14

When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, he and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here; the LORD has sent me on to the Jordan.” “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you,” Elisha replied. And so the two went on together. Fifty of the guild prophets followed and when the two stopped at the Jordan, they stood facing them at a distance. Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up and struck the water, which divided, and both crossed over on dry ground. When they had crossed over, Elijah said 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.” “You have asked something that is not easy,” Elijah replied. “Still, if you see me taken up from you, your wish will be granted; otherwise not.” As they walked on conversing, a flaming chariot and flaming horses came between them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. When Elisha saw it happen he cried out, “My father! my father! Israel’s chariots and drivers!” But when he could no longer see him, Elisha gripped his own garment and tore it in two. Then he picked up Elijah’s mantle that had fallen from him, and went back and stood at the bank of the Jordan. Wielding the mantle that had fallen from Elijah, Elisha struck the water in his turn and said, “Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” When Elisha struck the water it divided and he crossed over.

The stories of the prophets Elijah and Elisha fascinate across the millennia.  They lived in the 800’s B.C. in the kingdom of Israel.  Elijah’s name means “My Lord is Yahweh”, “Yahweh” being the currently accepted way of pronouncing the Hebrew name for God.  His name is significant because during his lifetime many Israelites and their rulers fell away from the worship of the God of their fathers and turned to the worship of the old Canaanite gods, such as Baal.  “Elijah” was more than just a name: it was a statement of identity and of faith.

Of the many stories told of Elijah, perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most vivid, is that of his being carried into heaven by a flaming chariot pulled by flaming horses.  Mystery surrounds this story as well.  Of all the prophets of God, why did God bring Elijah into heaven in this way?  Also, for Christians, the question arises of how could Elijah enter heaven before the Resurrection of Jesus?  Furthermore, how could Elijah enter heaven body and soul, without dying?  Was this not an honor reserved for the Blessed Virgin Mary?

Many interesting speculations result from the considerations of the Church Fathers and medieval writers who asked themselves these questions.  In the most common opinion to the first question, Elijah’s ascent into heaven is likened to that of Enoch, as recounted in Genesis 5, 21-24: that as a particularly righteous man, he was saved from having to live among the wicked.  St. Thomas Aquinas answers the second question by stating that Elijah did not enter the highest level of heaven where God dwelt with the Virgin Mary and the highest saints, but that he was placed on a lower level and could not look upon the Beatific Vision.  In those days it was thought that seven levels of heaven existed, with the lowest equivalent to the sky.  This more or less answers the third question: he could live with his body in a low level of heaven because he had not died.

Because he had not died, the Jews wondered if he would come into the world again at some point.  The prophet Malachi, working within a few hundred years of the coming of Christ, prophesied that he would indeed come again, to announce the Messiah: “Behold, I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord!” (Malachi 4, 5).  Later, Jesus confirmed that Elijah had indeed come, in the person of John the Baptist: “I say to you, that Elijah is already come, and they knew him not” (Matthew 17, 12).  

However, this does not quite answer the question as to how Elijah will get to heaven with the other prophets and saints because it was understood that one must die in order to go there.  The answer came to the Fathers from considering another question, seemingly unrelated: who are the “two witnesses” in the Book of Revelation?  In Revelation 11, 3-12, two unnamed prophets are said to come upon the earth and to call on the people of the earth to repent.  After a certain number of days they are to be killed by the dragon, and three and a half days later they will rise into heaven.  The later Fathers came to the conclusion that these two must be Enoch and Elijah, the most righteous of men, and that their martyrdom at last allowed them to enter into the highest heaven.  

Whether or not this is what will happen, the Catholic Church has accorded Elijah a feast day, July 20, which, interestingly, is the date on which men from the earth first landed on the moon.