Today, we hear a passage today from the middle of the book of Jonah. Jonah had gone to Nineveh to preach God’s message of repentance, having great success. The people of Nineveh changed their hearts, putting on sack cloth and ashes as a sign of repentance. The king of Nineveh led his people in showing God their remorse. Yet, Jonah was not happy at the positive way his message was received since Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, which was Israel's bitter enemy. Jonah wanted his enemy destroyed and punished. He did not want to see them forgiven by God. He did not want to see them prospering.
Jonah was so distraught that he wished to die. We can get upset and distraught about things as well. We can think we know what is right and just, but the ways of God are often different from the ways of the world. We may want vengeance and punishment for those who wrong us; we usually don’t want to see them forgiven or given mercy. Yet, as a priest, when I see a person who is able to forgive, an amazing transformation takes place. If we foster resentment and bitterness in our hearts instead of forgiveness, love, and mercy, what is that telling us about the way that we live out our faith?
Pope John XXII is the saint we celebrate today. He was elected Pope in 1958 and served in that office until June 1963. One of 13 children, he was born to a poor family of sharecroppers in the Lombardy region of Italy. He served as papal nuncio in France and the papal delegate to Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. He was unexpectedly elected Pope at the age of 76. Many thought he would be a “caretaker” Pope who would just stay the course and would not enact any big changes. However, he called the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965, envisioning the windows of the Church swinging wide open and letting the fresh air of the Spirit blow through. Pope John XXIII said this about how we should approach life, which is perhaps advice he might give Jonah in our reading today: “Consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what your tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do.” Let us unite our prayers with the prayers of Pope John XXIII today.
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