Wednesday of the First Week in Lent
March 4, 2020
Today, in Mercy, one line from our readings hit me like a lightening bolt:
The word of the LORD
came to Jonah
a second time.
Yes, it’s the truth! God will keep coming back again and again to encourage us to hear his true message for our lives.
Our Gospel gives us a hint about how resistant we sometimes are to this deep listening:
This generation is an evil generation;
it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,
except the sign of Jonah.
What is the sign of Jonah anyway?
To put it simply, it is the witness of the Resurrection – that overarching event that changed everything for believers. For just as Jonah was able to return from certain death in the whale’s belly, so Christ conquered death and rose to new life, promising us the same power.
This is the central, life-changing belief for Christians. It should make a difference in how we live.
By our Lenten repentance, we can be like Jonah, grasping the second chance God always gives us to respond to our life circumstances with faith, hope, and love.
I would bet there is something in your life right now that is calling you to such a response. Someplace in your life, you may be caught in a bit of a “whale’s belly 🐳” about some issue, am I right?
God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them. He gives us needs that He alone can satisfy, and awakens capacities that He means to fulfill. Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation, leading to a new birth and a mystical regeneration.” ― Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Today’s readings remind us that we already have the glorious sign of the Resurrection to inspire us to leap from that dark “belly” into God’s hope for us!
Music: a fun song “In the Belly of Whale” – The Newsboys
