Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
The word “sign” is preeminent in Luke’s Gospel today. Life is full of signs: signs advertising products, traffic signs. The sacraments are signs. People reveal likes or dislikes through the signs of body language. It is essential to pay attention to both material and spiritual signs and even dangerous sometimes not to do so.
Signs can speak in profound ways. God communicates through signs, requiring awareness on our part— to see what is there in front of us, God trying to get our attention. Another word for this is “sacramental awareness.” Or as Ignatian spirituality would have it, “God in all things.”
Another way to put it: “All is gift. All is grace.” (Saint Therese of Lisieux)
Jesus speaks of the “sign of Jonah”---the prophet’s sojourn in the belly of the great fish for three days (the text never speaks of a whale). Jesus was the sign to his generation just as Jonah was a sign in his time. Jonah, swallowed by the great fish, emerges after three days on dry land.
Jesus reminds his listeners that at Jonah’s preaching, a pagan city repented. He challenges that there is something greater than Jonah but they refuse to see what is right in front of them.
Nineveh, capital of Assyria, was the most vicious of empires. Genocide was Assyria’s modus operandi.
Nineveh repented, much to Jonah’s chagrin, putting on sackcloth and fasting. Continuous metanoia—conversion of heart—is the work of a lifetime. Instead of Ninevite sackcloth, we may wear the mantle of compassion. We may fast from food but also from distractions that keep us from recognizing God in all things, especially the people Providence brings into our lives.
Autumn is a rich season to sharpen our sacramental focus as God bursts forth in abundant color and beauty. Let us not miss the glory of October as nature’s glorious masterpieces are painted for our enjoyment. Our only response is gratitude.
As Thomas Merton wrote, “Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.” Merton had developed the clarity of sacramental eyes.
Great spiritual masters over time were convinced of God’s sense of humor (ever seen an aardvark?). In fact, humor is a signal of the transcendent, a sign to not take this passing world too seriously. We are only sojourning here, after all.
Signs are especially evident around coincidences. Are they simple chance occurrences or more than that, incidents of “God winking?”
O God give us eyes to see and ears to hear!
Timothy J. Cronin
There are seven signs in the Book of Revelation. You can encounter them the next two Wednesdays at 7pm at IC: https://www.youtube.com/user/imedayton/live