Why are You Mad?

By -

Imagine Jonah, running out of town, sitting under a tent, waiting on God to respond to his complaints.  How could God have asked him to run through the city of Nineveh, telling people that their city was going to be destroyed, and then forgive them and save them once they had repented?  What was God thinking? Jonah wondered.

And furthermore, while he was sitting under that tent, steaming about the situation, God sent a big leafy plant to give him shade, which made Jonah very happy because it gave him relief from the sun.  What made Jonah not so happy was the worm that God sent in the morning which attacked that nice plant and caused it to wither.

Boy was Jonah mad.  "Kill me now" he seemed to be saying, as he told God he would be better off dead than alive.

As I was reading all of this in the last chapter of the Book of Jonah (read it in the Old Testament--the entire book is only two pages long), I started thinking about that nice, leafy gourd plant.

How many times in our own lives, has God provided for us, and we complained?  How many times  have we been ungrateful, thinking we were somehow owed what we have been given?  

Do we realize that everything we have--that we imagine is simply the result of our hard work--is actually a consequence of God's love for us?  And when we don't have all that we want, do we think God is mad at us, or unfair?

Sometimes we are comfortable.  Sometimes we struggle.  But the clear message in the Book of Jonah is that God is not a distant God, but a loving and merciful God.  God saved the people of the city of Nineveh for their repentance.  Jonah lost his shade as he sat there mad and unrepentant.

In the end, God asked Jonah, "Have you reason to be angry over the plant?"  

Here's the final lesson for Jonah, and for us today:

"The Lord said, 'You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished . . ."

What is the gourd plant in your life, that "cost you no labor," that is pure gift, for which you should be grateful?

Janet Cassidy
janetcassidyblogspot.com
jmctm2@gmail.com



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SAINT ELIZABETH, MOTHER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST- Feast: November 5

By -
Image
Elizabeth appears in the Gospel of Luke, where she is described as “righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly,”.  I imagine that she was warm, loving and obviously a safe harbour for young Mary, who was not married when she conceived.  When Mary came to visit her, Elizabeth was pregnant with St. John the Baptist and in her sixth month: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And how have I deserved that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, the moment that the sound of thy greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who has believed, because the things promised her by the Lord shall be accomplished.” 
Read more

The Memorare

By Helen Gonsalves -
Image
This popular prayer, a favorite of many Catholics, dates back to the 15th century and takes its name from the first Latin word of the prayer, "memorare," which means "remember." The Memorare is of unknown authorship, although it has been attributed to St. Augustine (354-430), St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) and, with more reason, to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153). St. Bernard's sermons on Mary were famous, and it was his Cistercian monks in the monastery of Citeaux in the 12th century who popularized the name "Our Lady" for Mary. The Memorare has also been attributed to the French cleric Claude Bernard (1588-1641), known as the "poor priest" of Paris, whose homilies contain passages that echo its words. No matter who wrote this prayer, it was Father Bernard who did much to popularize it, teaching it in hospitals and prisons, where Mary's intercession was effective in working miracles of grace. The first manuscript of the Mem...
Read more

'Greater Love: Richie Fernando SJ', a joy-filled Filipino missionary

By -
Image
 I haven't been able to post for more than a week as I was giving an eight-day directed retreat to eight sisters of the Missionaries of Charity near Manila. While I had some access to the internet it was rather slow. I had intended to make a post here on the murder of Fr Fausto Tentorio PIME , a 59-year-old Italian priest, in the Diocese of Kidapawan, Mindanao, on Monday 17 October. I will save that post for a later date. As I was looking for a video about Father Fausto I came across one about Brother Richard Michael 'Richie' Fernando SJ, a Filipino Jesuit scholastic who died while trying to prevent a troubled and disabled young man in Cambodia from throwing a grenade. That was in 1996 - on 17 October. Father Fausto gave his life exactly 15 years later. I remember the mixture of sorrow and pride I felt when I read of the death of Brother Richie, pride as a missionary in the Philippines that a young Filipino seminarian had given his life so spontaneously in order to sav...
Read more