Wednesday of the First Week of Lent

Today's Mass Readings

“At the judgment, the citizens of Nineveh will rise along with the present generation, and they will condemn it. For at the preaching of Jonah they reformed, but you have a greater than Jonah here.”

We “have a greater than Jonah here.” The greater than Jonah is the Incarnate Word, Jesus, who is among us even now as the Risen Lord. His very presence in our midst demonstrates his trust in the Father’s love which has won forgiveness even from the most heinous sins and overcomes the cynicism of Satan.

We can become cynical about such lavish mercy. We can easily be scandalized by God’s ways. Hear this in the story of Jonah:
God relented: he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened. Jonah was very indignant at this; he fell into a rage. He prayed to Yahweh and said, ‘Ah! Yahweh, is not this just as I said would happen when I was still at home? That was why I went and fled to Tarshish: I knew you were a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. (3:10 4:2)

Jonah was scandalized by the forgiveness that God gave the Ninevites. As far as Jonah was concerned, it simply was not the way to run a universe! Not unlike our lives. How many times do we learn of forgiveness given and received, and we resent it because it has not been won by hard, human effort? God’s mercy is not fair, or so we think!

Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB