Word to the Wise
Monday, October 13, 2008 - Monday in the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
[Galatians 4:22-24, 26-27, 31-5:1 and Luke 11:29-31]At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.
When I was a student brother (seminarian) in River Forest, IL, one of my Dominican brothers had a little sign on his door which read: REPENT!!* Then down below was the [*] which said: [If you have already repented, kindly disregard this message!] Amusing it may be, but repentance is not a final state of being. It is a continual life-long process of conversion! Jesus confronts the "generation" in front of him who want elaborate "signs" but do not want to make the effort of conversion that true faith requires. He mentions the "sign of Jonah" as a model. Immediately we might think of Jonah in the belly of Leviathan, but that is not the reference here (cf, however Matt. 12:42). The reference here, as Jesus points out, is repentance! Jonah was a rare phenomenon among the prophets - he succeeded in getting a group to listen and repent! Nineveh becomes a model in two ways. First, they recognized that Jonah was a prophet! (The irony noted by Jesus is that there is a "greater than Jonah" preaching now!) The second way is that they listened and repented! In this regard, Jesus was not as successful as Jonah! When one recognizes the scope of the prophetic challenge nowadays, one may sympathize with Jonah who tried to run away from God's call! The secular indifference to any religious value that challenges the civil religion of our nation is so discouraging. Only those things which are "correct" have any chance of being heard in many circles (especially popular media). The indifference to the sacredness of life across the spectrum from womb to nursing home/death row (except when it might serve as the basis for litigation or other forms of revenge) makes "success" in Jonah's terms almost impossible to come by. But the one "greater than Jonah" had to endure outright hostility and left behind only a small band of supporters to carry on the preaching. It is that example that keeps me at the preaching and conversion process. The importance of the message is a matter of life and death. AMEN
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