The Kingdom of God Is at Hand!

 In today's first reading, Jonah 3: 1-5, 10, the prophet is asked to go to Nineveh "and announce to it the message that I will tell you."  God's announcement was dire: "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed."   Why?  The people had turned away from God, were doing evil instead of good, were living lives of corruption, not of integrity!  The people of Nineveh, believing the prophet's message that its city would be destroyed, "proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil ways, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out."

As with Nineveh, so, too, with us. In the Gospel, Mark 1: 14, Jesus says to us:  "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."   In other words, turn from evil ways; live according to the Gospel. Live as Jesus lived here on earth!

In the responsorial psalm, Psalm 25, we ask God to teach us His ways, that is, teach us to live as Jesus lived.  "Your ways make known to me; teach me your paths, guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior. Remember that your compassion, O Lord, and your love are from of old. In  your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord."

 May all of God's children, the great and the small, turn from that which bring destruction--the destruction that comes to us through sinful ways--and turn toward life that comes to us through doing that which is good and right!