Wednesday of the First Week in Lent

Lectionary: 226

At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it,
because at the preaching of Jonah they repented,
and there is something greater than Jonah here.”

Jesus may have read the story of Jonah as we do today, as an entertaining, comical story with a sharp point; but he prefers to use the sharp point rather than the comical. He told some wonderful stories but they were not told to entertain anyone. And if we go to the Bible or the Church for entertainment, we're wasting the little time we have. 

Jonah and the Lord warned about the judgment of God, as does the Season of Lent. We're approaching that hour when Pontius Pilate will escort the Lord to the judgment seat -- that seat where the procurator usually sat -- and pushed the Lord upon it. And then he turned to the crowd and shouted, "Behold the Man." And they pronounced judgment. 

We've heard a lot about nonjudgmental and "unconditional love," phrases which never appear in the Bible. The Old and New Testaments are full of judgment; and insist that the Day of the Lord is coming. But fools will not be prepared for it. 

Is there some reason why God should not judge us. Don't we judge one another continually? Who hasn't looked at someone else and said, "Thank God, I am not like him?" Ours is a moralistic religion which speaks of good and evil, righteousness and wickedness, mercy and justice, sin and forgiveness; and then teaches us how to live so as to deserve God's mercy even as it warns us of the consequences of evil. 

Given the assistance God gives us no one can claim to have done it on their own, but neither can they claim the odds were stacked against them. There were opportunities and fools failed to take them; there were invitations and they declined. And we have suffered the consequences and should have learned from the experience. 

I was taught an older Act of Contrition and I prefer it for several reasons. It makes no promise to "sin no more." (As if...!) But with it I do intend to "amend my life, and to avoid the near occasions of sin" insofar as they can be avoided. I also take seriously "the pains of hell," although I have little need to imagine how dreadful they might be.

O My God,  I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. Most of all, because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, to amend my life, and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.