October 6, 2021, Wednesday, 27th Week in Ordinary Time

Jon 4:1-11

Ps 86

Lk 11:1- 4

Our reading of the book of Jonah continues and comes to an end. The prophet must realize that the threats of destruction towards the city of Nineveh have not come true, because its inhabitants have turned from their ways and the Lord has repented regarding the evil he had threatened.

Instead of rejoicing in the success of his prophetic mission, the main task of which is the work for conversion and salvation of the people, Jonah is indignant: God made him proclaim destruction, not to encourage conversion! The Ninevites are great sinners: they must die, not repent!

Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh. He prayed, “I beseech you, Lord, is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loath to punish.

And now, Lord, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”

But the Lord asked, “Have you reason to be angry?” (Jon 4:1-4).

Although extremely sensitive and closed in his ideas, Jonah’s relationship with God is candid and direct; he prays, repeating his thoughts, reproaching him for his excessive pity and asking God to make him die. He does not even answer God’s patient reply, which appeals to his reasonableness, but he leaves Nineveh, going east, “to see what would happen to the city”, perhaps hoping that the Lord would change his mind again and destroy the Ninevite disbelievers. The universality of divine mercy is still foreign to his mind and heart.

But God, who took pity on Nineveh, likewise takes pity on his prophet, forcing him to reconsider his positions through suffering: the castor plant grown over his head, which had protected him from the heat of the sun, dries and the prophet is overwhelmed by the heat:

And when the sun arose, God sent a burning east wind; and the sun beat upon Jonah’s head till he became faint. Then Jonah asked for death, saying, “I would be better off dead than alive.” But God said to Jonah, “Have you reason to be angry over the plant?” “I have reason to be angry,” Jonah answered, “angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?” (Jon 4:8-11).

Jonah's selfish temper does not frighten the Lord, who knows how to deal with him. He does it with irony, but also with compassion and gentleness, making him understand that one hundred and twenty thousand human beings, unaware of any moral law, plus a multitude of animals, cannot perish without arousing his infinite compassion. The book of Jonah anticipates the revelation which will be fully manifested in the Incarnation of the Word and which the apostle John summarizes as follows:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. (1 Jn 4:7-8)

Some verses of Psalm 86, which we sing in the responsorial psalm, present the praying man’s trust in God's mercy (in this way similar to the Ninevites) and show universal openness, which the prophet Jonah lacked:

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for to you I call all the day. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you. Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer and attend to the sound of my pleading. All the nations you have made shall come and worship you, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds; you alone are God.

The Gospel makes known the request of one of Jesus’ disciples, and the Master’s response:

“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”

The text of the Our Father that Luke hands down to us comes later than that of Matthew and is shorter: it contains only five petitions instead of the seven that we are used to reciting, but it is very meaningful. We first note the disciples desire to satisfy the longing for prayer that is present in their hearts: they saw Jesus praying to the Father and they want to imitate him. They also saw how Jesus prays: not like the scribes and Pharisees, who place themselves on the corners of the plaza to be seen by men, but He prays by establishing a conversation of trust and love with God, his Father. Jesus replies immediately to their humble and sincere request, without mincing words: “When you pray, say: Father!” Enter into a relationship with him and ask him for what you really need: that is, that his name be glorified, not yours; that his kingdom come, not yours; that he give you your daily bread, because you need it; that he forgive your sins, because you too are committed to forgiving the sins of others towards you; and that during temptation do not abandon yourself to your feeble strength alone, but allow him to support you in the struggle and grant you victory.

Blessed Christian of Chergé, a missionary monk martyred in Algeria in 1996, is a modern-day prophet, who represents the exact antithesis of the prophet Jonah and instead carries out, in accord with his monastic vocation, the great petitions of the Our Father: sanctification of God's name, the coming of his kingdom and, above all, the forgiveness of sins.

Christian, together with his brother monks, did not abandon his Muslim neighbors in time of danger and forgave in advance the one who would kill him:

Obviously, my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naïve or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ideals!”

But these persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free. This is what I shall be able to do, God willing: immerse my gaze in that of the Father to contemplate with him His children of Islam just as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and restore the likeness, playing with the differences. For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seems to have willed it entirely for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything. In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families, You are the hundredfold granted as was promised!

And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing: Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this GOODBYE to be a “GOD-BLESS” for you, too, because in God's face I see yours.

May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen! Inch’Allah. (Testament of Christian of Chergé, prior of the Tibhirine monastery - Algiers, December 1, 1993 - Tibhirine, January 1, 1994).