The sixth reflection about the paintings of Michele Bellanti in the Church of Annunciation, Mdina

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”

“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.

“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”

As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.

Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.

2 Kings 2: 9-14

The Prophet Elisha stands unobtrusively in the background within the scene of Elijah’s dramatic ascent to heaven. After running away to Mount Horeb in fear for his life, Elijah is told by the Lord to anoint Elisha as prophet to succeed him eventually. At once, “Elijah departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his mantle upon him” (1 Kings 19:19). Elisha immediately understood that this was not some frivolous gesture, but a prophetic action signifying God’s choice. Therefore, Elisha “took the yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah, and ministered to him. (1 Kings 19: 21).

The period that Elisha spent ministering to Elijah served him as an apprenticeship, enabling him to become a prophet powerful in word and in deed. As we have seen above, when the moment came, Elisha initially protested the loss of his master and, in a similar way to the Apostles when Jesus ascended to heaven, he stared at the sky as though he could not accept that his time had now come. But Elisha’s wish is granted, and Bellanti manages to capture that detail most vividly: as he is being taken up in the chariot, Elijah stretches out his arms to embrace the infinite, letting his mantle fly off him. At the same time, Elisha can be seen fervently praying for his wish to be granted.

During the Last Supper, Jesus promised us too that, if we remain in him, whatever we ask for will be done for us. Do we honestly believe this? How sincere and strong is our prayer? God continues to work miracles. Nevertheless, he does not impose himself in the face of our shallow faith. Yet, if we truly believe that God chose us first, before we chose him as Lord of our life, then we really can ask for anything and receive the power to bear fruit since we would not be relying on our own ability but, like Elisha, we would come to acknowledge God’s love for us and let that be the foundation on which we build our life.