Homily: Wednesday of the 1st Week of Lent - Open to change

The Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent take on a more penitential tone. And our readings are literally about people repenting and the Lord praising their repentance.

The third chapter of Jonah contains one of the most dramatic responses to the call to repentance in the entire old covenant—the entire a city of Nineveh—about 120,000 people—everyone, the nobility, the peasantry, even the cattle and sheep—all repented when God sent Jonah to preach to them.

When the Ninevites repented, they expressed their repentance by fasting, covering themselves with sackcloth, and sitting in ashes. But better yet, they had the best sort of repentance, as they indicated their sorrow "by their actions how they turned from their evil way".

During lent we undertake the external practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to show our repentance, as signs of repentance, and to bring about that entire conversion which will have an effect on our behavior, attitudes, and choices.

Why, does Jesus in the Gospel call this generation, an evil generation? Because it was so resistant to repentance. It didn’t want conversion, it didn’t want to be open to God’s message as the Ninevites were, it wanted signs, it wanted a magic show, it wanted to be entertained. Sounds familiar.

The people of Nineveh, wicked as they were, made the connection between their sins and impending destruction. These people frequently brutalized and butchered large numbers of people. They were pagans, spiritually dead, the least likely to repent. Yet the prophetic word pierced their hearts, and they repented en masse. Jesus commended their repentance.

When people are in sin, telling them to repent is not unkind or cruel. It is an act of love, because only in this way can they correct their lives and receive eternal life.

What God desires so much more than Catholics to give up Chocolate and meat on Fridays, is that we be changed by our Lenten sacrifice—that our spirits be renewed for the work of the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. What kind of change does God want for us this Lent? Perhaps it's a change in the way we treat strangers, or treat family members, perhaps it's a change in the way we spend our free time, perhaps it's going from a mediocre prayer life, to an intense experience of God's presence through prayer.

May the Holy Spirit open our hearts to the change God wants for us this Lent for the glory of God and salvation of souls.