1st Week of Lent - Wednesday - 40 days of repentance

 As I mentioned in my homily on Ash Wednesday, which begins the 40 days of Lent, there are quite a few instances of the number 40 in the Bible:

Moses was on Mt Sinai for 40 days conversing with God in preparation to receive the commandments.

The Israelites wandered through the desert for 40 years in preparation to enter the promised land.

Elijah fasted for 40 days in preparation for his prophetic mission.

And of course, the Lord Jesus fasted for 40 days in preparation for his Gospel mission which culminated in his self-sacrifice on Good Friday.

These periods of 40 days and year represent 40 days of intense, intentional preparation for God’s will and new life with God.

In today’s first reading we heard of another 40, 40 days of preaching by Jonah to a pagan people. For 40 days, the prophet Jonah preached to the Ninevites, calling them to conversion, warning them of destruction if they failed to repent. And after those 40 days, the Ninevites did repent, beginning a new life turned toward God. And they did so, in quite the elaborate and enthusiastic fashion. They did so in visible ways, outward ways—in sack cloth and ashes and fasting—in order to show their inward repentance.

Throughout these 40 days we are called by the prophetic voice of the Church to repent as the Ninevites did—to show our repentance for our sins and waywardness in outward, enthusiastic, and deeply sincere ways.

In the Gospel today, the Lord Jesus in fact condemns those of his generation for failing to repent. Lent presents us with a stark option: will we associate with the Ninevites, who repent and show their repentance by their holy works and actions? Or will we be condemned by Jesus for failing to repent as wholeheartedly as we should.

Next week, Wednesday evening, every parish in the diocese will have confessions from 5 to 8pm. If there is anyone in your life who has fallen away from the Church, be Jonah for them, call them to repentance. Your invitation might be the prophetic gesture which leads them back to God. And be a Ninevite for them, show them the power of repentance, the joy that comes from encountering God’s mercy, of returning to Him with your whole heart, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring to all people purification of sin and selfishness.

For those preparing for baptism and the Easter sacraments, that they may continue to conform themselves to Christ through fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

That we may generously respond to all those in need: the sick, the suffering, the homeless, the imprisoned, and victims of violence. And for all victims of the coronavirus and their families.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.