The signs and the sack-cloth

THE WORD IN LENT - 1st week, Wednesday

March 04, 2020: Jonah 3: 1-10; Luke 11: 29-32

Point for Dialogue #6: Signs of the times and Readiness to change

Act now! The house is on fire! - heard that slogan somewhere? The famous slogan of the Swedish teen, Greta Thunberg which has drawn drastically mixed responses. Besides the millions of those who believe the climate-change crisis is something urgent to be addressed, there are those who slam these protests and the movement as senseless, as leftist, as baseless and ask for proofs after proofs. There are some who call it a myth, a fiction, a hoax. May be in these young voices we have a prophetic message, who knows? Are we ready to listen to it. Let us turn to the Word today...

The prophetic protests of the youth today resembles the message of Jonah. And 'the sign of Jonah' - what really does Jesus mean by that? Is it merely a reference to the fact that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days? According to Luke, No. The Gospel and the first reading taken together makes the message clear. And of all times, at the present times, the message seems so perfectly applicable! 

The world is going in a direction so bizarre and in a pace so reckless; everything seems acceptable and basics seem crammed up. Respect for persons, dignity of life, value of truth, sensitivity to the other, sense of self-donation, respect for nature and its resources, respect for the rights of all - these seem to be totally alien to the world today. It is against this background that the Word calls for a dialogue between the signs of the times and our readiness to change; that is truly conversion.  

But the final word, however, is not hopelessness: that is the message! Listening to the call of Jesus, if we stop, think, and return to right living as the people of Nineveh did at Jonah's words - it will surely become a better world to live in. But are we ready? 

There is no alternative. If we really do not want to ruin the world and our existence further, we have to stop clamouring for further signs but return to our sack-cloths, in all humility, begin to change ourselves and our ways.