Wednesday, March 1, 2023

 

Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

(Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 11:29-32)

Historians label Jesus an “eschatological prophet.” They see him, in worldly terms, as a religious scold warning others of the end of the world.  Certainly, Jesus preached repentance.  Much like Jonah in today’s reading, he urged decisive change in how one lives to be saved from a dreadful end.

But the end of the world has not come after almost two thousand years.  Of course, there have been scenarios of an end.  Scientists and novelists tell of a nuclear war; a swift-spreading, death-dealing pandemic; or a giant meteor crash killing billions instantly and short-circuiting agriculture.  Still humans have never united in common effort to live righteously.  How should these facts be interpreted?

We should be thankful that the world has not approached an end.  When it happens, the panic will be unbearable.  Nevertheless, people die all the time.  In other words, we experience individual ends some after eighty or ninety years, others much sooner like a boy recently shot in the crossfire of a drug war.  We need to prepare ourselves for this inevitable occurrence.  Because we know that God is love, we should begin to love as purely and completely as He.  When the time comes then, He will recognize us as His own.

No comments: