Year of Prayer with Benedict XVI: Remember God’s fidelity 

In his general audience on June 15, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the prophet Elijah as an exemplary figure of a person of prayer. To do so, he draws on the famous episode of his duel with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

Let's briefly recall the context of this story. We are in the 9th century B.C., in the Northern Kingdom—after the schism that saw the partition of Solomon's kingdom—at the time of King Ahab. Weary of the invisible and mysterious God who had made a covenant with them, the Hebrew people fell into syncretism by adopting, alongside the Lord, a more predictable and accessible divinity: the idol Baal, which they believed would provide the gift of rain and the fertility of the soil.

Elijah takes a stand against this idolatry. To bring the people back to the Lord, he summons them to Mount Carmel and challenges the false prophets of Baal. The latter's idol remains powerless to set fire to the altar. Elijah, for his part, succeeds after praying to his God (1 Kings 18:20-40).

Benedict XVI draws several lessons from Elijah's prayer in this episode. First, he notes that the prophet defines himself as a servant of God: "Let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding," he says (1 Kings 18:36). With this confession, Elijah affirms that he did nothing on his own, but obeyed a divine inspiration.

We too, when we pray, can rest assured that God is a step ahead of us, and that it is he who has inspired the prayer we address to Him. "Elijah, with his intercession, asked of God what God himself wanted to do, to show himself in all his mercy," says Benedict XVI. Reflecting on Elijah's words, we realize that our prayers represent relays in this world of God's will. As prayerful people, like Elijah, we are servants of God. Prayer, even personal prayer, is a service to the Church as well as a charitable work.

Benedict XVI goes on to point out that it was Elijah's concern for the conversion of the people—that is, their return to God—that motivated his prayer. "Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back." (1 Kings 18:37).

We too, in our humble place, can be as effective as Israel's prodigious prophet when we pray for hearts to return to God. This conversion is not an optional extra. Idolatry is a source of selfishness, whereas conversion opens us up to God's love and takes our focus off ourselves. 

Benedict XVI sees an unmistakable sign of this in the attitude of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. By their gestures, which are supposed to have power over their pseudo-divinity, they in fact demonstrate that they trust only in themselves, instead of opening up to the otherness represented by the one God.

In this regard, the Holy Father notes that, unlike the idolaters, Elijah asks the people to approach the altar in such a way as to involve them in their own invocation of the Lord (verse 30). This detail reveals that prayer for the conversion of hearts does not overlook the freedom of the individual. Prayer is not magic. 

Finally, Benedict XVI emphasizes that Elijah's prayer was part of his struggle for truth, which was the essential motive for his supplication. The prophet turned to God and asked Him to reveal Himself as the God who had made a covenant with His people, and thus as the true God. 

Even more fundamentally, Elijah appealed to the Lord's faithfulness—that is, to what makes up the profound truth of his Being. It's not enough to know that God exists; we must also confess his mercy. And this is what Elijah did, calling him the God of his fathers, "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel," "thus implicitly calling to mind the divine promises and the story of the choosing and Covenant that bound the Lord indissolubly to his people" (Benedict XVI).

Elijah's call to God teaches us that in our prayers we should remember God's faithfulness, which constitutes the merciful truth of His Being, as the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary testifies. Knowing God's truth is not only good for the intellect, but also for supporting our grievances and supplications to the Lord! The example of the prophet Elijah is a perfect illustration of this dimension of prayer practice.