Daily Reflection: Jonah 3:1-10 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD’s bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” when the people of Nineveh believed God; 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 the ashes. Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: “Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water. Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand. Who knows, 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. Todays continuation of the story of Jonah focuses upon the call to repentance for the city of Nineveh. Jonah, himself, has gone through a three day process of prayer and penance, now he calls the city of Nineveh to conversion. So persuading is Jonah, the king of Nineveh announced a penance of sackcloth and ashes. What is the significance of sackcloth and ashes? Often times sackcloth and ashes are mentioned in the Bible as an act of penance and purification. Sackcloth was worn to literally irritate the body as a reminder of how sin has done harm to their soul. Ashes communicate a sense mourning, our own mortality, and penance done for our sins. In the ancient Church, public sinners, as a part of their penance, wore sackcloth and sat in ashes, begging people to pray for them for a period of time. Therefore, sackcloth and ashes are to be a public sign of penance and reconciliation. The Church, obviously, does not ascribe to these practices anymore. Yet, that does not mean that the spirit of what they symbolize is to be departed from. The metaphorical sackcloth that emphasizes the agitation of the soul from our sins is manifest in the piercing of our conscience. We call this experience Compunction. It is this compunction, this agitation of our conscience, that moves us to seek Gods forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. As part of Confession, the penance given by the Priest are the ashes to remind us of our mortality, to bring an end to our mourning of the sin committed, and offer to God an act of penance to help firm our resolve to avoid the sins we confessed in the future. Put another way, the process of our conscience being pierced, which moves us to seek forgiveness is seen as our metaphorical sackcloth and ashes. Spiritual exercise, is God calling you to a metaphorical sackcloth and ashes today? Is there a piercing of your conscience that is gnawing at you? Offer any agitations of the conscience to God in prayer and, if needed, seek out Gods mercy in the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Any time we reflect upon our morality, we encounter the subject of our conscience. Pope Francis created a little stir when we made comments in a recent interview stating that people cannot act contrary to their conscience. Some people presumed that Pope Francis was promoting moral relativism. However, Pope Francis was, in an interview format, simply stating a basic foundation of our moral teaching: When a person acts, right or wrong, our conscience ultimately consents to our acts before we do them. Therefore, conscience formation is essential. Here is Fr. Barron addressing some core questions about conscience. Enjoy! :)
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 11:53:07 +0000
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