17 February 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.” Jonah 3:10
“The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time.” That little phrase is already Gospel. Jonah had run away the first time, and God gave him a second chance. Now he walks into Nineveh, the vast capital of Assyria, Israel's cruel enemy, and preaches the shortest sermon in the Bible: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Then something astonishing happens. “The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.” The king rises from his throne, takes off his robe and sits in ashes. Even the animals are made to fast. The royal decree says: “All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent.” And God does. The forty days of Nineveh are the forty days of our Lent: a time when a whole people, from the palace to the cattle shed, turns back to God.
In the Gospel the crowds keep asking Jesus for a sign. He answers that they will get only one: “the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation.” Jonah came to Nineveh as a man who had been three days in the belly of the fish; Jesus will give the sign of his own death and resurrection on the third day. The pagans of Nineveh repented at a stranger's five-word sermon, and the queen of the South crossed the earth to hear Solomon. “See, something greater than Jonah is here!” The danger is not that God gives too few signs, but that we who hear Christ every Sunday stop being moved. Today the Church also remembers seven merchants of Florence who in 1233 left their businesses to live in prayer and penance on Monte Senario, serving Our Lady of Sorrows: the Servites. Like Nineveh, they turned around completely.
Theme: “See, something greater than Jonah is here!”
The God of second chances, a city that repents from top to bottom, and the sign of the risen Christ.
“Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”” Jonah 3:4
“The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
Apply: Thank God for one second chance he has given you.
“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Luke 15:7
Apply: Make a concrete act of restitution for one wrong you have done.
“But the LORD provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” Jonah 1:17
“The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!” Luke 11:32
Apply: Go to confession before the end of February.
God gives second chances to cities and to sinners.
The risen Christ is the sign: let us turn to him.
Take-home resolution: Celebrate the sacrament of Penance this Lent, and bring your family with you.
Dear friends, the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time (Jonah 3:1). That is good news: God does not give up on us after our first failure.
Jonah enters Nineveh and cries: forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! (Jonah 3:4). And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth (Jonah 3:5). Even the king stood up from his throne and sat in ashes.
God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, and he did not bring the calamity (Jonah 3:10). Repentance is not just feeling sorry; it is turning, with our hands as well as our hearts.
Jesus says the only sign he will give is the sign of Jonah: his death and resurrection. See, something greater than Jonah is here! (Luke 11:32). If the pagans turned at five words, how much more should we turn at the word of Christ. Amen.
Children, the people of Nineveh were doing many bad things. When Jonah told them to change, they all said sorry to God, even the king! And God forgave them. God always forgives us when we are truly sorry.
Merciful God, you sent Jonah to Nineveh a second time and you relented when the people turned to you. Give us a second chance and a contrite heart. May we, who have heard one greater than Jonah, turn from our evil ways and live. Through the prayers of the Seven Holy Founders, help us to stand with Mary at the cross of her Son. Amen.
This is the Lenten reading par excellence: a whole foreign city turns to God at the preaching of a reluctant prophet. Jesus takes up that story and turns it toward his hearers: those people listened to Jonah, and someone greater than Jonah is here. The question for Lent is simple. Nineveh needed five Hebrew words; how many have I heard? The key words are turn, sign and greater.
Setting.
The Book of Jonah is short and unlike the other prophets: it is a story about a prophet, not a collection of his sayings. A prophet named Jonah son of Amittai appears in 2 Kings 14:25, in the eighth century BC. Many Catholic scholars read the book as a teaching story, written later, after the exile. Its message stands in either case.
Nineveh was a capital of Assyria, the empire that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, and it stood in Israel’s memory as a city of cruelty; the prophet Nahum sings of its fall (612 BC). Jonah has already fled from this mission once, and has been swallowed and brought back (chapters 1–2). Now comes the second call. Chapter 4 will show why he ran: he did not want these people forgiven.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time,” (3:1)
The God who gives a second chance to Nineveh has first given one to his own prophet.
“Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (3:4)
In Hebrew the sermon is five words long. There is no call to repent and no offer of mercy in it. A note on the text. The Hebrew says forty days, while the Greek Old Testament says three.
“And the people of Nineveh believed God;” (3:5)
They respond before the king does, and before anyone tells them what to do. Foreigners do at once what Israel’s prophet had run away from.
“Who knows? God may relent and change his mind;” (3:9)
The king claims nothing. Repentance does not put God under an obligation; it hopes in his mercy. Joel uses the same words (Joel 2:14). Even the animals in sackcloth (v. 8), with their touch of humor, show how complete the turning was.
“When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways,” (3:10)
God looks at what they did: not at the sackcloth, but at the turning from evil and violence (v. 8).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that Jesus’ call to conversion does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes”, fasting and mortification, but at conversion of the heart; without this such works remain sterile, and true interior conversion in turn seeks expression in visible signs (CCC 1430). Lent is one of the Church’s seasons of penance (CCC 1438). The Syriac Churches, including our Syro-Malabar and Malankara brothers and sisters in Kerala, keep a special three-day fast in memory of the repentance of Nineveh, before Lent begins.
Setting.
Luke’s setting explains the saying. Jesus has driven out a demon, some have said he does it by Beelzebul, and “others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven” (11:16). Now, with the crowds growing, he answers. He has already given signs. The trouble is what the demand for one more sign hides.
“This generation” in the Gospels means those who refuse to hear, in that place and time. It is a warning to every listener in every age, not a verdict on a people (CCC 597–598).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation.” (11:30)
In Luke the sign is Jonah himself and his preaching; Luke says nothing here about the sea monster. Matthew draws out the three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40). The two fit together: the one who preaches is the one who will go down into death and rise.
“The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it,” (11:32)
The picture is of a court. The foreigners stand as witnesses for the prosecution, not because they were holy, but because they repented.
“because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!” (11:32)
The argument goes from the lesser to the greater. Nineveh had a reluctant prophet and no miracles. We have the Son of Man.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that only the divine identity of Jesus’ person can justify a claim like “something greater than Jonah” and “greater than Solomon” (CCC 590). It also notes that Jesus speaks of the sign of Jonah when he announces his Resurrection on the third day (CCC 994). So the sign that the Lord gives his Church is the Paschal mystery itself, toward which all of Lent is walking.
Does God change his mind?
Scripture says both things. “God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind” (Numbers 23:19), and also that God “changed his mind” about Nineveh (3:10). God’s will to save does not change. The threat was given so that it would never have to be carried out. When we change, we meet that same will as mercy instead of as judgment. Scripture’s human language tells us that God truly responds to his people.