In those days the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying: “Arise and go to Niniveh, the great city, and preach in it the preaching that I bid you.” And Jonas arose, and went to Niniveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Niniveh was a great city of three days’ journey. And Jonas began to enter into the city one day’s journey, and he cried and said: “Yet forty days and Niniveh will be destroyed.” And the men of Niniveh believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. And the word came to the king of Niniveh, and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in from the mouth king and of his saying: “Let neither men nor beasts, oxen nor sheep, taste anything: let them not feed nor drink water. And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and forgive: and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we will not perish?” And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and the Lord our God had mercy on His people.
Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The Church’s intention in this day’s lesson is to encourage us to earnestness and perseverance in our penance. Here we have an idolatrous city, a haughty and debauched capital, whose crimes have merited the anger of heaven. God threatens it with his vengeance: yet forty days, and Niniveh and its inhabitants will be destroyed. How came it, that the threat was not carried into effect? What was it that caused Niniveh to be spared? Its people returned to the God they had left they sued for mercy, they humbled themselves, and fasted, and the Church concludes the Prophet’s account by these touching words of her own: “And the Lord our God had mercy on His people.” They are Gentiles, but they became His people because they did penance at the preaching of the Prophet. God had made a covenant with one only nation, the Jews, but He rejected not the Gentiles as often as they renounced their false gods, confessed His holy Name, and desired to serve Him. We are here taught the efficacy of corporal mortification. When united with spiritual penance, that is, with the repentance of the heart, it has power to appease God’s anger. How highly then should we not prize the holy exercises of penance put upon us by the Church during this holy Season! Let us also learn to dread that false spirituality which tells us that exterior mortification is of little value: such doctrine is the result of rationalism and cowardice.
Gospel – John
vii. 32‒39
At that time the rulers and Pharisees sent ministers to apprehend Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them: “Yet a little while I am with you, and then I go to Him that sent me. You will seek me and will not find me, and where I am, there you cannot come.” The Jews therefore said among themselves: “Where will he go that we will not find him? Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles? What is this saying that he has said: ‘You will seek me and will not find me, and where I am you cannot come?’ And on the last and great day of the festival Jesus stood and cried, saying: “If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He that believes in me, as the Scripture says, ‘Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this He said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in Him.
Praise be to you, O Christ.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The enemies of Jesus sought to stone Him to death, as we were told in yesterday’s Gospel. Today they are bent on making Him a prisoner, and send soldiers to seize Him. This time Jesus does not hide Himself, but how awful are the words He speaks: “I go to Him that sent me. You will seek me and will not find me!” The sinner, then, who has long abused the grace of God may have his ingratitude and contempt punished in this just, but terrific way, that he will not be able to find the Jesus he has despised. He will seek and will not find. Antiochus, when humbled under the hand of God, prayed, yet obtained not mercy (2 Maccabees ix. 13).
After the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, while the Church was casting her roots in the world, the Jews who had crucified the Just One were seeking the Messiah in each of the many impostors who were then rising up in Judea and fomenting rebellions which led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Surrounded on all sides by the Roman legions, with their temple and palaces a prey to flames, they sent up their cries to heaven and besought the God of their fathers to send, as He had promised, the Deliverer! It never occurred to them that this Deliverer had shown Himself to their fathers, to many even of themselves; that they had put Him to death, and that the Apostles had already carried His name to the ends of the earth. They went on looking for Him, even to the very day when the deicide city fell, burying beneath its ruins them that the sword had spared. Had they been asked what it was they were awaiting, they would have replied that they were expecting their Messiah! He had come and gone. “You will seek me and will not find me! Let them, too, think of these terrible words of Jesus who intend to neglect the graces offered them during this Easter. Let us pray, let us make intercession for them, lest they fall into that awful threat of a repentance that seeks mercy when it is too late to find aught save an inexorable Justice.
But, what consoling thoughts are suggested by the concluding words of our Gospel! Faithful souls and you that have repented, listen to what your Jesus says, for it is to you that He speaks: “If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” Remember the prayer of the Samaritan woman: “Give me Lord, to drink of this water!” This water is divine grace: come and drink your fill at the fountains of your Saviour, as the Prophet Isaias bids you (Isaias vii. 3). This water gives purity to the soul that is defiled, strength to them that are weak, and love to them that have no fervour. Nay, our Saviour assures us that He who believes in Him will himself become as a fountain of living water, for the Holy Ghost will come upon him and this soul will pour out upon others of the fullness that she herself has received.
