Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 25 th January 2009

 FEAST OF THE CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL

Religion is a serious matter. It should not be a sad matter. Some non-believers have seen us believers as being so interested in heavenly things as to make us no earthly use! But think how different it was in the beginning when God created us and brought this wonderful world into existence? It all depends how you see the beginning of the story of God with us.

If we imagine that in the beginning there was an angry God whose creation was frustrated by sin and disobedience, then all that follows will be based on trying to appease that anger. The truth is that in the begging there is a God of life who wants to share his creation and his own life with us. He wants us to have life and have it to the full. Sin and disobedience are heartbreaking to God but do not cause him to give up on us. Love won’t let him do that and in the end the sending of His Son will prove this beyond any shadow of doubt.

The road back to salvation and peace of creatures with God is long with many twists and turns. Some of the incidents are serious such as the Exodus which is that great journey from slavery to freedom. It is worth remembering that our personal and communal journey is also an exodus from sin and slavery to freedom in love. Maybe we don’t always appreciate it but God has a sense of humour also. Take for instance the story of Jonah contained in the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God and part of which is our 1 st Reading today at Mass.

The Book of Jonah tells the story of a disobedient prophet who refuses God’s request to preach to the Assyrians in Nineveh. The Assyrians were the hated conquerors of the Jewish people. Jonah wanted nothing to do with them. God wanted Jonah to go and preach repentance to these people whom Jonah loathed and give them the chance of forgiveness by God. To Jonah this approach of God was incomprehensible. So Jonah goes off by boat to get away. There is a terrible storm and the sailors conclude that someone on board is the cause of it. Jonah has nowhere to hide and admits that he is on the run from God because he would not do what God asked him. Jonah tells the sailors that if they throw him overboard the storm will end and all on board will be saved. Sure enough, they throw Jonah into the raging sea.

Low and behold, Jonah is swallowed up by a great fish and wanders around for three days in its belly until God tells the fish to spew out poor Jonah. This he does and Jonah has learned his lesson and off he goes to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. They repent and Jesus in his ministry mentions this story as a model of repentance. The only word of caution is that the story is just that, a story, intended to amuse and to instruct us. Its doctrine marks one of the high points of the Old Testament where the people of Nineveh are forgiven when they have done nothing to merit God’s offer of forgiveness. It is a story of grace.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that though our wandering away from God and even our sins, though serious and wrong, must sometimes make God smile. The good news is that nothing puts God off. He hates when we hurt each other but does not reject us. He sends help. Sometimes he asks us to help and unlike Jonah we should try and go the first time and not risk ending up in the belly of the fish. But even then God smiles and gets us back!

Aidan Troy, C.P. (Aodhán Ó Troighthigh, C.P.)