To Elijah, who is alive with a jealous love for God, God manifests himself, with a tenderness beyond all that we can imagine!

"What are you doing here, Elijah?" a question repeated twice (9,13) obliges Elijah to compose himself, to discover what is going on in the depths of his heart. There he can only see in himself one thing: his jealous love for Yahweh, which has brought him to this encounter with his God!

The hurricane, earthquake, fire are all symbolic of what he has been through in his prophetic mission to Israel: battling against their growing waywardness lives, and idolatry. Elijah is "down and out" with desperation and ready with his complaints to Yahweh! But God has a surprise encounter with him, in the silence of a gentle breeze. The prophet is calmed into retracing his journey, but with a new perspective and a new twist to his mission.

God is with us, in the reality of our daily lives, and this is what Prayer/ Daily Examen of Consciousness does for us...to refocus our vision each time we are in front of a brick wall, and unable to move forward: to keep gazing on God's face, in whatever form it takes. This is fidelity to our mission.