27th Week, Ordinary Time, Tuesday, Oct 5
Jonah 3:1-10 /
Luke 10:38-42
God calls Jonah again: This time Jonah obeyed.
A Peanuts cartoon shows
Charlie Brown in a dejected state. He is depressed because he failed to come to
the rescue of his sister when the playground bully was taunting her. Linus
tries to cheer Charlie up, saying, “You know what you would do, if you had it happen
all over again.” Charlie says, “Yeah, I’d probably do the same thing.” Many of
us feel the same way about certain things. We think change is impossible.
Today’s reading, however, suggests otherwise. God is a persistent
lover. His mercy is infinitely more generous and his grace is infinitely more
powerful than our sinfulness.
*****
How convinced are we that we can change if we just keep trusting and
trying? “Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.” Christopher Morley
***
In
Jonah’s experience, God’s word is very powerful if we bring it to people in the
name of God and if they are open to it.
***
It's one thing
to know that we have a bad habit, or an addiction, but yet it is another thing
to kick it out or to change our habits. One simple example is watching TV. We
can get into the habit of just sitting in front of the TV and let time fly, and
slowly it becomes an addiction. And short of throwing away the TV, we might
find it real difficult to kick this bad habit or the addiction of wasting time
and watching rubbish. So, what is the key to change, to conversion, to
repentance? Relying simply on will-power might be out of the question, because
we know how often will-power has failed us when it comes to an addiction. yet the key is also in the will-power. The
will-power must be empowered by the truth; only then can the will-power respond
to the call for conversion and repentance. The people of Nineveh repented
because they heard the truth from Jonah, and they responded.
That is also
what Jesus is highlighting in today's gospel. The one thing needed and which is
necessary is to listen - to listen to the truth and to be open to it. Listening
to the truth and being open to it is what is needed if we are to respond to
God's call to conversion and repentance. May our hearts be opened to that
truth.
***
A
hospitable family or person makes guests feel at home and gives them the best
available. But if we are truly hospitable, we are also listening to the guest
and to receive from him or her perhaps more than we give and in a deeper way.
We receive the guest as a person. God presents himself in the Bible as a traveller
on a journey. He asks for hospitality as a stranger or a poor person. Christ
also says that in the homeless we welcome him.
***
Jesus is on the way to
Jerusalem and his passion, when he dropped in at Mary and Martha's. He needed
some rest and comfort. Mary understood this better. He also understood that
there was a clash of temperaments. Mary may have been better but Martha was
good. Better is not the opposite of good. Some take this story to mean that
there are two ways of those who give their life for Christ. The contemplative
and the active. They read too much into the story. Jesus was not just a
contemplative. Hours of prayer and meditation are the best preparation for our
activity. To cut these hours for work is apt to make work empty, meaningless,
outward activity. The teacher or the preacher who comes from the presence of
God to the presence of men gives knowledge and light. For him, contemplation was
the source of all activity. His preaching and teaching, even his whole life had
its origin there. He was a contemplative in action.
***
Prayer:
Our loving God and Father, you
have invited us to stay with you, to listen to the message of Jesus your Son and
to accept from him your peace and love. May we welcome him wholeheartedly and
learn from him to welcome him too in people who appeal to us for forgiveness
and a bit of warmth, for patience and hope and joy. Let them not pass your
servants by. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
