Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
The image Jesus offers today is the sign of Jonah (Luke 11:29). He tells the crowds, “It is an easy and adulterous generation that demands a sign” (Luke 11:29), and then warns that the only sign he will give is the sign of Jonah.
All Jews knew the well told tale of Jonah the prophet who hid from God but was nevertheless used in spite of himself to convert Nineveh, the capital of dreaded Assyria. Jonah was swallowed by a great fish and taken where he did not want to go: a metaphor for death and rebirth. Not only was Nineveh changed but so was Jonah.
Rather than expecting miracles or visions, Jesus tells us metaphorically that we must go inside the belly of a great fish for a time. Then and only then we will be spit out on a new shore and learn our call, our place, our purpose. We must descend down in order to be raised up! Christians call this the Paschal Mystery and it is the heart of our faith.
Like Ohio, the Paschal Mystery is “the heart of it all.” The Paschal Mystery is a mystery in that it does not appear logical or rational. Yet this is the way of transformation and growth. The mature spiritual life requires it. Still, it hurts like hell and that is the point.
None of us freely go into the belly of the beast. But unless we face crises such as the passing of a friendship, the loss of a marriage or a career, setbacks and disappointments, we will not mature in the spiritual life. Maturity shows us how to trust and enter into the difficult times that will surely come. Hard times are the greatest of teachers.
Nobody gets a pass in life and we enter pain without answers, without conclusions, and sometimes seemingly without meaning. This is the perilous and hidden path. Grace leads us through the emptiness when we find ourselves crying out to God and asking where God is in the struggle. This Jesus experienced intimately from the cross.
It takes a tremendous amount of faith and grace to believe in the midst of loss and sorrow that those are the very times when God is closest to us. Only then will there be one with our crucified Lord. And thus be raised with him!
-Timothy J. Cronin