Daily Gospel Reflection - Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 18,2022
Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mt 12:38-42
Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
He said to them in reply,
“An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign,
but no sign will be given it
except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights,
so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth
three days and three nights.
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah;
and there is something greater than Jonah here.
At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
and there is something greater than Solomon here.”
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, today in our Gospel, some Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign. And Jesus replies, “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet,” who was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights.
Jonah was called by God to preach conversion to Nineveh, which is described as an enormously large city. It took, they said, three days to walk through it. I can’t help but think of Nineveh as one of our large, modern cities, a center of all sorts of worldly activity and preoccupation.
What would its conversion look like? A turning back to God as the only enduring good. After hearing the word of Jonah, the Ninevites “proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.” What is the purpose of these ascetic practices? To wean people away from an attachment to worldly pleasures.
Go beyond the mind that you have. Repent. Live as though nothing in this world finally matters. And you will be living in the kingdom of God!
COMMENTS