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 had a change of heart. They put on sack cloth and ashes as a sign of repentance. The king of Nineveh led his people in showing God how sorry they were. Yet, Jonah was not happy at the positive way this message was received. He was distraught over this development, since Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, 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 so upset and distraught about things as well, can’t we? We can think we know what is right and just, but the ways of God are often so different from the ways of the world. We 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, it is amazing to see the transformation that 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, the saint we celebrate today, the Pope who envisioned the Second Vatican Council as letting the windows of the Church swing wide open and letting the fresh air of the spirit blow through, 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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment