Be Attentive and Generous March 8

http://www.usccb.org/nab/030806.shtml

Today’s readings give us some ominous warnings about what will happen to people if they do not turn from their ways and what will happen to Jesus.

Jonah’s journey reminds me a little of the journey I am on right now. I left Monday morning and drive through the south to Florida for a conference. Passing out of Virginia, the landscape was still the late winter look of barren trees with cloudy and rainy skies. By the time I got to South Carolina a few hours later, the trees were beginning to show signs of the early blossoms of Spring. By Georgia, the trees had that bright green color of new growth. Then, when I arrived in Florida, the sunshine was bright and the trees in full bloom. In three days when I return home, I will see how Spring has inched a little further north until it arrives in Virginia in a few more days.

The hope of Spring is there in today’s readings when “every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand.” This turning toward peace was most recently echoed by Pope Benedict XVI in his first message ever for the World Day of Peace.

Jesus, we pray that our hearts and hands will turn toward you as the people of Ninevah turned. No matter where our daily lives lead us, help us to make you our “true north” to which we are drawn instinctively. Help us to purify ourselves and turn our backs on all that does not lead us to you. Set us free from everything that binds us to the ways of the past so that at judgment, the men of Ninevah will rise up and praise this generation for its repentance.

Action:

Read the inspiring words of Pope Benedict XVI delivered on January 1, 2006, in his first message on the World Day of Peace. See the whole message at this site:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20051213_xxxix-world-day-peace_en.html

Pope Benedict writes: “Be attentive and generous disciples of the Lord. When we hear the Gospel, dear brothers and sisters, we learn to build peace on the truth of a daily life inspired by the commandment of love. Every community should undertake an extensive process of education and witness aimed at making everyone more aware of the need for a fuller appreciation of the truth of peace. At the same time I ask for an increase of prayers, since peace is above all a gift of God, a gift to be implored incessantly.”

The call for education and witness along with incessant prayer echoes the famous theme of the order founded by his patron namesake, St. Benedict of Nursia – ora et labora, pray and work. Just as the Benedictine’s work and prayer put bricks in the kingdom of God, may this Lenten season allow us to work and pray for the same Kingdom and for the truth of peace in our hearts and hands.