Monday, October 5, 2015

Homily: Monday of the 27th Week in OT 2015 - Never tire of extending mercy

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, we’ll be reading through the book of the Prophet Jonah.

The Lord gave Jonah a daunting task: go to Nineveh and preach God’s judgment upon the wicked Ninevites. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, which had brutally and tyrannically held the civilized world in terror for three hundred years.

Jonah had no great love for the Ninevites.  They were wicked, they were the enemy. Jonah likely felt that the Ninevites could use a healthy dose of God’s wrath.  They were a threat to the very existence of the Jews.  If they repented, that would put his own nation at risk.  So when told to go to Ninevah, Jonah fled in the opposite direction.  He did not want God to show Ninevah any mercy.

In the Gospel, Jesus challenges the prevailing attitude about mercy, the attitude that you only show mercy to your own kind, your own people, your neighbor.  The story of the good Samaritan urges us to show mercy, not just to our own people, but to all: those of different of different races, those with different backgrounds, those of other faiths, those who are perhaps, repugnant to us.  That is to be the mark of the Christian: we are to show mercy toward all.

We are just two months away from the beginning of the year of Mercy, called for by Pope Francis.  In the Papal Bull, Misericordiae Vultus, announcing the year of Mercy, Pope Francis writes, “mercy is not only an action of the Father, it becomes a criterion for ascertaining who his true children are. In short, we are called to show mercy because mercy has first been shown to us. Pardoning offences becomes the clearest expression of merciful love, and for us Christians it is an imperative from which we cannot excuse ourselves. At times how hard it seems to forgive! And yet pardon is the instrument placed into our fragile hands to attain serenity of heart. To let go of anger, wrath, violence, and revenge are necessary conditions to living joyfully.”

Look at all the trouble Jonah caused for resisting God’s call to extend mercy: running away from mercy, caused a violent storm which nearly caused a shipwreck; Jonah was thrown into the dark sea from which only divine intervention could save him. 

We do well to consider how we will engage in works of mercy in the coming year.  How will I and my family feed the hungry, clothe the naked, counsel the doubtful, visit the imprisoned, pray for the living and the dead, bear wrongs patiently? Who might be the people that God is calling me to forgive or to extend mercy towards in a deeper way?


In this Holy Year, the Holy Father writes, we are to “look forward to the experience of opening our hearts to those living on the outermost fringes of society.”  “May we never tire of extending mercy, and be ever patient in offering compassion and comfort” for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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