Learning from the Ninevites!

 In today's first reading, Jonah 1: 1-10, the people of Nineveh were told that within 40 days the city would be destroyed .  When the people of  Nineveh heard this, they "proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.  When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes."  Not only that, the king also ordered that  "every man shall turn from  his evil way and from the violence he has in hand. Who knows," the king thought, "God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish.  When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out." 

What would you, what would I, do if we were told that within 40 days our lives would be over if we did not repent and leave sin behind? Would we, like the Ninevites, begin to fast and pray differently than we are now doing? Would we change our way of thinking and acting?  Would be become more fervent, more disciplined, more loving, more generous, more caring, more forgiving of others and of self? Would we live more by faith than by sight? Would we choose the road most traveled, following the crowd,  or the road less traveled, even if we are the only ones on that path because it is the path God has mapped out for us?

You and I might say: "Lord, give me a sign!"  And we know God's response, as given by Jesus in today's Gospel,  Luke 11: 29-32:  "[N]o sign will be given...,except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to [you]...   "A]t the preaching of Jonah, they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here."

As we pray in today Gospel Acclamation, Jesus says to us:  '"R]eturn to me with your whole heart for I am gracious and merciful" (Jl 2: 12-13).  It's like Jesus is saying: "Stop playing games with me by asking for a sign. You know what to do! My law is written on your hearts. And besides, I live within you and walk beside you!"