Sisters and brothers in Christ, we seek signs from God of His existence in the world and, more intimately, of His presence in our lives. C.S. Lewis once said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. . ." Are we listening to God? The people of Ninevah, as we heard in today's Gospel, did not heard God until He sent Jonah through their city with a "megaphone", shouting: "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown." What did the people do? The Ninevites, including their king, listened to God, who shouted through Jonah, and repented.
Perhaps God has not shouted loud enough in our lives for us to hear and listen to Him. However, it is more likely that we hear God but choose (of our own free-will) not to listen to him. That is on us, not God, when the time of Judgment comes for all of us. So what is it the God asks of us, requires of us? We find the answer in today's first reading: "Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God." Sounds easy enough but it is not. We need the grace of God to help us "walk humbly" and do what is right and love goodness. Grace we can receive when we seek the Lord our God and listen to Him.
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Gospel of the Day
Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” He said to them in reply, “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here. At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here.”
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