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.

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

 Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

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

Pope Francis has said that conversion or repentance is “a process that purifies us from moral encrustations.”  He probably meant immoral encrustations.  It is necessary that individuals recognize their faults and correct them.  If not, the faults may result in something monstrous.  Francis is aware that conversion is not easy.  He calls it “painful, because there is no path of holiness without some sacrifice…”  He might have added that people think too much of themselves.  They do not repent because they do not want to admit that they were wrong.

Today’s first reading tells of an extraordinary conversion.  The great city of Nineveh recognizes its sinfulness and repents.  There is no historical evidence that this conversion ever took place.  But there are other examples of national conversion.  Germany, after World War II, repented of its involvement with the Nazi’s scientific experimentation on humans without consent and its attempted genocide.  Today the country has relatively strict laws protecting people, including fetuses, from harm in the name of science.

Perhaps when our sins are large, we cannot hide from them.  We are almost forced to repent.  Smaller sins are less difficult to spot and more readily concealed.  Particularly this kind of sin – pornography, backbiting, lying -- challenges us the most.  Now is the time to rid them of our lives forever.

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

 Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

(Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 10:38-42)

Seven years ago ISIS blew up what they thought was the tomb of the prophet Jonah.  However, Jonah was not buried on that site because he never existed, at least as the biblical book pictures him.  Jonah is a story inspired by God to teach Jews and the rest of humanity about God’s mercy.  It extends to all creation, not just to Israel.

The Book of Jonah was written after the Jewish exile in Babylon, probably in the fifth century B.C. Jews suffered greatly during the exile, but God had delivered them. God seemed on their side, but they questioned how God relates to other nations?  The Book of Jonah shows that God extends the same mercy if the people there repent of their iniquity.  God is bigger than Jewish nationalists at the time wanted to admit.

It is a mistake to think that God does not love and cannot forgive those who have not been baptized.  Vatican II made clear that His love reaches out to all.  Christ is absolutely necessary for salvation, but access to him may be made secretly, even unknowingly.  What is necessary is the person’s exhibiting the love Christ shared with us on the cross.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

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

The Lenten fast sixty years ago required adults to not eat between meals and to not eat meat more than once a day.  Many Catholics either could not or would not make these sacrifices.  For the sake of unity and perhaps to curtail people from judging one another these rules were relaxed.  Since the Second Vatican Council the Lenten fast in the United States has been simplified.  Catholics are not to eat meat on Fridays and to not eat between meals on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  Still some people have difficulty meeting this reduced command.

The practice of a communal fast is presented in today’s first reading.  The Book of Jonah tells how non-Jews once responded to the Word of God by fasting.  On order of their king the whole population along with their animals did not eat or drink.  Truthfully, there is no other historical record that this fast took place.  Very probably the book was not written as a tale to change Jewish attitudes towards foreigners as well as to promote devotion among Jews.  Yet the idea of a communal penance is clearly established.

We too much consider ourselves as individuals and not as parts of a community or, better, communities.  We need to recognize that we both reap benefits and do damage according to the groups to which we belong.  When these groups injure others, we should recognize some responsibility.  The most patent example of injury for Catholics, as for many other organizations, has been racial prejudice.  Doing a common penance in reparation for these sins seems both fair and wise.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

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

There was a time within the memory of many living today when most Catholics would eat meat only once a day and fast between meals during the Lent.  Of course, they never ate meat on Fridays at that time.  The communal Lenten penance provided a sense of solidarity among the people much like what is indicated in today’s first reading.

Although there is no historical record of an Israeli prophet converting Nineveh or even of a city so large that it would take three days to transverse, the narrative from the Book of the Prophet Jonah provides readers with a profound religious truth.  It tells them that God expects them to acknowledge not only that they have sinned individually but also that their faults have caused others to sin.  As a result there is need that they help one another overcome sinful ways.  They should fast and pray together so that God might forgive their sins and bring the nation true peace.

We fast during Lent for various reasons.  We want to show remorse for our sins by denying ourselves some pleasures.  We also want to show our love for the Lord who has provided us with the goods of creation.  We also want to help one another live a life of moderation – very much in need today.  Doing so we demonstrate that it is not created things but the Creator who gives our lives permanence and peace.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Tuesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

(Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 10:38-42)

Since no historical records exist of the mass conversion of Nineveh and since the story of Jonah drips with exaggeration, the book is taken as an instruction to later Jews rather than a chronicle of an actual event.  It certainly indicates God’s will that other peoples be saved.  It also warns against prejudice.

Nineveh’s complete repentance is seen in the way both king and people change their hearts.  This sense is punctuated by dressing the animals in sackcloth.  Given that every society has some backsliders, Jews would have marveled to hear how thorough the conversion of their feared neighbors to the northeast was.  These were the same barbarians who had ravaged their ancestors.  Perhaps, the Jews could conclude, they are not as bad as they seemed.

The Book of Jonah is instructive to us as well.  It tells us not to write any people or any person off as beyond salvation.  God can work wonders. Those whom we may regard as despicable may surpass us in rendering true worship to God.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

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

A doctor recently commented on public radio how some asthmatic patients cannot forego having their cats in bed with them. Although they are hypersensitive to cat allergens and may die of an allergic reaction, the animals give them such comfort that they are considered like a spouse or a child. In the first reading today we see other animals taking on human dimensions.

In the reformation of Nineveh with Jonah’s preaching the king declares that both man and beast shall fast and wear sackcloth. It is humorous to imagine cats and dogs much less cows and sheep being dressed in rags to show the earnestness of the people to change their lives. We know now that the story is fictitious, but its purpose is definitely prophetic. It was written to teach Israelites that God will show mercy on all people who take His call for reform to heart.

Whether it means giving up pornography or beginning to pray regularly, reform is difficult. We have to keep in sight the end we desire if we are to accomplish it. We should consider the season of Lent as a special offer that not only calls us to reform but puts Easter on the horizon. In these ways we are inclined to make the necessary changes to rise with Christ.

Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious

(Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 10:38-42)

In 1219 Francis of Assisi went to Egypt on a missionary journey. When by a stroke of luck he was able to meet Sultan Malik al-Kamil, the two tried to convert each other. Kamil challenged Francis to walk across the image of a cross woven into a carpet thus committing apostasy. Francis did so but reminded the sultan that there were three crosses on Calvary and he had trod on the cross of the bad thief. Then Francis offered to walk across burning coals if the sultan would convert to Christianity. The sultan demurred saying that if he would forsake Islam, both he and Francis would be executed.

Francis may not have converted the sultan, but his experience did change the heart of his own order. When his friars established the norms for missionary activity among Muslims, Francis insisted that they prohibit any attempt to use weapons as a means of conversion. Nor were they to taunt Muslims into making martyrs of them. The same “conversion of ourselves” is at work in the Book of Jonah. The story of a mass conversion in Nineveh is apocryphal, but the purpose of the book is to move Jews to a conversion of heart. They are to note the attentiveness of the pagan Ninevites to the word of God and to respond with similar thoroughness.

Franciscan friars at their best still call us to renewed conversion. Walking in their habits, attending to the needs of the poor, bringing goodwill to all, Franciscans call us out of the narrow concerns into which even pious people may wander. They urge us, as did their great founder, to compassion, simplicity, and holiness.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

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

Ancient Nineveh lay in the area of the current Iraqi city of Mosul. No historical records indicate Jonah’s preaching there, but there is a site called “Jonah’s Tomb.” Devout Muslims and curious tourists gather at the place to recall the reluctant prophet whose preaching is said to have converted a notoriously depraved nation.

The first reading shows Jonah announcing God’s wrath with Nineveh and the people responding. The author emphasizes how it is a sincere, communal repentance. Not only common folk but also royalty and even animals of the city fast and change heart. In the gospel Jesus calls his generation “evil” because it refuses to change accordingly despite his best preaching efforts.

Now is the time for us to repent as well. If we eat more than what is healthy, we better cut back. If we allow ourselves to get upset, we should remember that God is at the helm. If we talk about others’ faults, we need to counter the tendency by praying for those with whom we have difficulty. We have heard Jesus’ call to reform. For his sake we want to change our ways.

Homilette for February 13, 2008

Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

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

Last year someone petitioned Congress to award posthumous American citizenship to Anne Frank. She was the Jewish girl whose diary helped move the world to condemn the Holocaust. Before her family’s hiding place in Holland was discovered, her father had requested relatives in the United States to seek his family’s admittance. Since the request was denied, supporters of the Congressional petition say that granting her citizenship would be a sign of repentance of complicity in the Holocaust. Critics of the measure argue, however, that it would be a cheap gesture since it requires no sacrifice on the part of the American people.

Both proponents and opponents have made other good arguments, but Congress has not yet voted on the issue. For now we can note how it illustrates the call for repentance of the Scripture readings today. Jonah announces God’s wrath with Nineveh’s evil ways, and the people repent. The author of the story emphasizes how it is a sincere, communal effort. Not only the common people but the king and even the animals of the city fast and change heart. In the gospel Jesus calls his generation “evil” because it refuses to repent of its sins with his preaching.

We too must repent of our sins, not just symbolically but wholeheartedly. This means that we don’t just say we are sorry or we don’t just go to confession. No, these would be empty gestures if they are not accompanied by a sincere attempt to change our sinful ways. A young woman once confessed of having sex with her boyfriend. “Will you promise not to have sex with him again?” the priest asked her. “No,” she answered, she couldn’t promise that. Then, she couldn’t receive absolution. Just so, unless we promise whole-heartedly to stop taking God’s name in vain or talking about others, we have not really repented of our sins.