Daily Retreat 01/22/06

2006 Jan 22 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Jon 3: 1-5. 10/ Ps 24(25): 4-5. 6-7. 8-9 (4a)/ 1 Cor 7: 29-31/ Mk 1: 14-20

From today’s readings: "When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way.... Teach me Your ways, O Lord.... the time is running out.... Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men."

1-22

Our Lord faced the stark reality of the Cross at the end of His earthly life. Today, we followers of the Crucified Christ must confront anew one of the most hideous splinters of that Cross, the residue reality of sin, freshly nailed again into innocent human flesh. For after the passage of 33 years, our Lord's earthly lifetime, this day, 1-22 (an exponentially more tragic anniversary than 9-11) is the awful anniversary of the still standing US Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade, when in 1973, the judicial branch of our government made bold to legislate the legalization of abortion, the crime that has stopped so many beating human hearts.

Stained with the splattered blood of so many humans sacrificed to the pagan idol of choice, you and I are tempted to yield to despair, to believe the lie that the precedent is too enthroned to be overturned, and so we moan, "There's nothing I can do!"

"There's nothing I can do." That flimsy excuse fits well on the lips of the likes of Jonah, that reluctant prophet chosen by God to preach against the wickedness of Nineveh. "Now Nineveh," as the first reading relates, "was an enormously large city." It was the capital of the Assyrian empire, the mightiest world power of the day, and one of the cruelest, most blood-thirsty reigns in all of history. The Assyrians ruled by terror: if a vassal state attempted rebellion or withheld tribute, the Assyrians would unleash a frenzy of annihilation, leveling whole cities, impaling rebel officers of all ranks, decapitating every surrendered soldier, and enslaving every man, woman, and child still breathing among the conquered peoples. And Nineveh hosted the emperor's supreme court - from Nineveh, those tyrannical decisions would be promulgated that meant the death for so many innocents because of the cold-hearted choice of those in power.

So who can blame Jonah? Faced with such political might, no wonder he fled in fright! Yet God insisted there was something Jonah could do - in fact, there was something Jonah needed to do for his own salvation, and the good of the entire nation! And so, in that biggest fish story of all time, the Book of Jonah recalls not how a prophetic fish nearly got away, but how a fishy prophet finally got "the Way" - God’s Way, that is, for Jonah got reeled into the Lord's own angling, which Jesus later labeled "fishing for men."

When Jonah cast away his flimsy excuses, and finally decided to act "according to the Lord’s bidding," he simply warned the Ninevites that "the time is running out," as St. Paul would later likewise warn the Corinthians; Johan simply raised the call to repent, as Jesus would later do in the fullness of time. "Time is running out," because evil laws legislate moral disintegration, and thence falls, inevitably, even the mightiest nation. So again, this day becomes our moment of crucial decision, for again, this is the time of fulfillment, the moment to renew the call to repent, and believe in the Gospel!

"There’s nothing I can do?" Cast away that and all other flimsy excuses, because when you and I finally decide to act according to the Lord’s bidding, when you and I warn the citizens of this nation that time is running out, when you and I recall that Christ has already transformed the Cross into the instrument of redemption, THEN you and I can courageously face the tragic sliver of the Cross overshadowing our lives, THEN you and I can denounce the evil of abortion with the zeal of the prophets, THEN you and I will lead our country to turn from the evil way, when we finally get God’s Way!