We can just as easily lose the light received in obedience of the Lord our God when our mission is completed out of obligation rather than love. That is love without condition.
Let’s see Today’s first reading in a different way, perhaps you alone witnessed an accident in which a bus drove off road and flipped. You rushed to the crash site to offer assistance. As you draw near you see the passengers are convicts who were being transported to the correction facility. Few you recognise from reading the news papers of their heinous crimes. You want to quickly get back into your car and drive off but your Christian sensibilities and the voice in your head tells you that it is your responsibility to help. So you do everything you can to save them. You learn later on that everyone on that bus survived! Instead of rejoicing or giving thanks to God for His love and mercy you are dismayed. In your mind and heart they deserved to die. How different are you from Jonah?
There are many other forms of prejudices some often subtley hidden even within the hearts of those in Church. There are folks treated as social outcasts egs. Foreign workers, domestic helpers, divorcees, those with same sex attraction to name a few. Are all of these not God’s children? Does God our Father love you any less if the same love and mercy is given to them?
So let us reflect more deeply on the prayer our Lord taught us as we pray…..
Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done,
on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.
[‘The Lord’s Prayer ‘is truly the summary of the whole gospel.’ ‘Since the Lord… after handling over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, ‘Ask and you will receive, ‘ and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer (the Lord’s Prayer) is said first, as the foundation of further desires.’ – Tertullian, De orat. from the Catechism of the Catholic Church; 2761.]
First reading
Jonah 4:1-11 ·
Jonah is angry at God’s mercy
Jonah was very indignant; he fell into a rage. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Ah, Lord, is not this just as I said would happen when I was still at home? That was why I went and fled to Tarshish: I knew that you were a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. So now, Lord, please take away my life, for I might as well be dead as go on living.’ The Lord replied, ‘Are you right to be angry?’
Jonah then went out of the city and sat down to the east of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God arranged that a castor-oil plant should grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head and soothe his ill-humour; Jonah was delighted with the castor-oil plant. But at dawn the next day, God arranged that a worm should attack the castor-oil plant – and it withered.
Next, when the sun rose, God arranged that there should be a scorching east wind; the sun beat down so hard on Jonah’s head that he was overcome and begged for death, saying, ‘I might as well be dead as go on living.’ God said to Jonah, ‘Are you right to be angry about the castor-oil plant?’ He replied, ‘I have every right to be angry, to the point of death.’ The Lord replied, ‘You are only upset about a castor-oil plant which cost you no labour, which you did not make grow, which sprouted in a night and has perished in a night. And am I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?’
Gospel
Luke 11:1-4
How to pray
Once Jesus was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’
He said to them, ‘Say this when you pray:
‘“Father, may your name be held holy, your kingdom come; give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins,for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us. And do not put us to the test.”’
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