Tags
Jonah, judge, message, Nineveh, prayer vigil, random acts of kindness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, warning
Two thoughts crossed my mind this morning as I was reading the account of Jonah’s second announcement from God (“post-whale,” JON 3: 1-10). First I mused on the fact that Nineveh was such a big city that it took three days to go through it. I wondered how long it would take now to traverse a place like New York City and whether the walk would include all five boroughs and maybe some further-out suburbs. Since Jonah was giving a warning about destruction of the city, it would seem that he would have needed to check in everywhere.
My following thought was more to the point and more complicated to consider. Actually, it became a whole rush of questions. I’ll use New York as an example because it is a big city but not to judge the population in any way. What if there was a clear message from God that the city and all its inhabitants were to be destroyed in 40 days unless everyone repented (honestly, not just mouthing the words) of all their sins. Maybe sackcloth and ashes wouldn’t do for evidence. Maybe it would need to be huge prayer vigils and “random acts of kindness” in addition to the fasting.
I hesitated to write that because it sounds – even in the face of my disclaimer above – that I am speaking of a vengeful God who punishes wrong with destruction. That’s not it at all. As a matter of fact, I’ve been seeing evidence of lovingkindness on the evening news lately which renews my hope. I’m speaking of a day when self-interest would be put aside in favor of unity and light.
Are we there yet? Could we do it city by city at least in our country? What about where you live? Would I be willing to propagate the message? First, I would need to believe in the possibility of success. Then I would need to gather people who believe we are capable of convincing others because of the sincerity and light coming from inside all the speakers. That’s just the beginning, I guess. Call me crazy, but who knows what could happen if we really decided for God and put our minds and the entire power of our loving hearts into it?
It has not escaped my notice that each day since the vigil of Easter the gospel acclamation has been the same verse. From Psalm 118:24 we hear or read, This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it. This morning I think I finally got the intended message.
I have to smile this morning as I sit here waiting for a message to arise when prompts are all around me. My brain feels like a broken record and I wonder if I will ever move through a day – or even an hour – without falling out of consciousness. Here’s what I mean.
There’s a subtle shift for me today in the Advent theme. Perhaps it will only last until tomorrow but the message of anticipatory waiting is given an additional push from the gospel acclamation – in a rather unusual way. After the psalm I read: Alleluia, alleluia. The Lord will come; go out to meet him! He is the prince of peace. Alleluia, alleluia.
Today is Monday – time to resume the “headset” of the workaday world after a weekend of blessed celebration. One of the loveliest parts of the weekend was coming home yesterday to mark the actual feast of St. Joseph, our patron, which this year in community we noted on the day before and in the Church celebrate today on the day after (because of the pre-eminence of the third Sunday of Lent). We had a delicious dinner and I got presents from my housemates! Tucked in one of the jubilee cards was a colorful stiff square of a card written on both sides whose message was the following, which I believe will find itself in a central place in my bedroom and my life for what I hope will be years to come!
There is no possibility of missing the message in today’s text from the Letter to the Hebrews. No time for what was called “lollygagging” in the old days. These are serious times that demand our full attention. Listen then to how we are to conduct ourselves:
No matter how I try, there is nothing in me able to string enough words together to make a comprehensible message. Books at my side give me nothing appropriate or worthy. There is no light yet outside to ignite something from inside (and vice versa). I look around the room and the words I can read as titles of the books standing at attention in their rows are the following: Life, integral, Selling All, Jesus, Seek My Face, Compassion, Meditations, Silence.
As I read the gospel acclamation for this morning (the “Alleluia verse”) which said, “The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives” (LK 4:18), a question passed through my mind. If you were the one being sent by the Lord, I heard, what would be your message to the poor and the captives? In the following of Jesus, that is perhaps a great question for us. How do I – how do you – see the “good news” of God? What glad tidings do we have to share with the world, particularly for the benefit of those most in need?
“What gift will you bring to the Christ Child?” we were always asked in Catholic school when we were young. Our answers were all about ways in which we could be “good boys and girls” – behaviors that would make the Christ Child smile and our parents happy. There was certainly a devotional value to that practice, a teachable moment that gave us a sweet and kind image of God “in flesh” to whom we could easily relate. Of course there was still the hope that we might get the gifts for which we were so longing, usually in those days rather simple and less expensive gifts than what is “expected” in today’s society.