21 January 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
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“For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation.” Luke 11:30
The fast ends with a surprise: the prophet is angry that God was merciful. Nineveh has repented and been spared, and Jonah sulks under a bush. God asks him: “Is it right for you to be angry?” and ends the book with a question that is addressed to us: “should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” The fast is complete only when our heart becomes as wide as God's mercy, even for those we dislike.
Abraham pleads for Sodom: “Suppose ten are found there.” Joshua falls on his face before the ark. Saul, the persecutor, is thrown down on the road and called; he later writes that God “was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.” And Jesus says: “something greater than Jonah is here!” The Ninevites believed a reluctant prophet; we have the Son of God himself. Today we also remember St Agnes, the young Roman girl who gave her life for Christ. She shows that the response to Christ can be total even in the young.
Theme: “Something greater than Jonah is here!”
The fast ends: a wide heart, prayer for others, and Christ the true sign.
“And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”” Jonah 4:11
“This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3–4
Apply: Pray for someone you find hard to forgive.
“Then he said, “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”” Genesis 18:32
“The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” James 5:16
Apply: Pray for your town by name each day this week.
“But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” Psalm 13:5
“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: Give Christ more attention than Nineveh gave Jonah: read a Gospel passage daily.
The fast is complete when our heart becomes like God's.
Christ, greater than Jonah, calls us to listen.
Take-home resolution: Reconcile with one person this week.
Dear friends, the fast ends with a surprise. Nineveh repents and is spared, and Jonah is angry. God asks him: is it right for you to be angry? (Jonah 4:4). And the book ends with God's question to all of us: should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city? (Jonah 4:11).
The fast is not finished until our heart becomes as wide as God's mercy, even for those we dislike.
The other readings show us intercessors. Abraham pleads for Sodom: suppose ten are found there (Genesis 18:32). Paul, once a persecutor, writes that God was pleased to reveal his Son to me (Galatians 1:15–16).
And Jesus says: something greater than Jonah is here! (Luke 11:32). With St Agnes, who loved Christ with her whole young heart, let us leave the fast with wide hearts and listening ears. Amen.
Children, God loved all the people of Nineveh, even their animals! God wants us to love everyone, even people who are not nice to us.
Merciful God, you spared Nineveh and rebuked the narrow heart of your prophet. As the fast ends, make our hearts as wide as your mercy, teach us to intercede like Abraham, and through the prayers of St Agnes give us her undivided love for Christ, who is greater than Jonah. Amen.
The fast ends with a surprise: the prophet is angry that God has been merciful. Around this reading the calendar gathers others. The Evening Gospel (Luke 12:54–59) asks us to read the present time. Abraham pleads for Sodom and Joshua falls before the ark (Genesis 18:22–33; Joshua 7:6–13). Psalm 13 asks “How long, O Lord?”. Saul the persecutor is thrown down and called (Acts 9:1–9), and he tells of it in Galatians 1:13–24. We study Jonah 4:1–11 and Luke 11:29–32. The key words are concern and something greater.
Setting.
Nineveh has repented and been spared (3:10). Now, at last, we learn why Jonah ran in chapter 1. He was never afraid of failing. He was afraid of succeeding. This is the last chapter of the book. It is entirely a conversation between God and an angry man, set outside the city under a booth and a bush.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (4:2)
This is Israel's great creed from Exodus 34:6, which Joel 2:13 also quotes. Jonah says it as a complaint. The verse is the key to the whole book: a person can know the creed perfectly and still resent it when it is applied to an enemy.
“And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”” (4:4)
Jonah does not answer. God does not end the conversation with him either.
“But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.”” (4:9)
The prophet has grown more attached to his shade than to a hundred and twenty thousand lives. The storyteller wants us to laugh, then to be silent.
“And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”” (4:11)
“Do not know their right hand from their left” may mean small children, or those without moral understanding. The “many animals” are a last, tender touch. The book stops here, with God's question unanswered. The answer is left to the reader.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism takes the words of Exodus 34:6 as God's self-revelation (CCC 210), and Jonah 4 shows how demanding they are. It is wrong to make Jonah a caricature of the Jewish people. This book is Israel's own Scripture, and the synagogue reads it on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. It holds a mirror to every believer, Christian and Jew, who is glad of mercy for himself and slow to want it for others. Jesus asks the same of us in the parable of the elder brother (Luke 15:25–32).
Setting.
The crowds are growing, and some have been asking Jesus for “a sign from heaven” (11:16). Matthew tells of the same saying (Matthew 12:38–42). Luke's version has its own emphasis: the sign is Jonah himself, the man who came from far with a word of God, as the Son of Man now stands before the crowd. Jesus speaks these hard words to his own contemporaries, as the prophets did; they are not a judgement on a people.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” (11:29)
We read Matthew's account three days ago. There the sign was three days in the sea monster. Here Luke does not mention them. The two evangelists show the same sign from two sides, the rising and the preaching.
“For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation.” (11:30)
Nineveh saw no miracle in the Book of Jonah. It only heard a man speak, and it turned.
“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!” (11:32)
Luke ends on this note, and today the fast ends on it too. The Ninevites believed a reluctant prophet who gave them five words. We have the Son of God, the whole Gospel and the Holy Qurbono.
How the Church reads it.
St Paul is the great example in today's other readings. Saul, on his own account a zealous persecutor, is stopped on the road, and he can write that God “was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles” (Galatians 1:15–16). Like Nineveh, he turned. The Catechism names conversion as a continuing task of the whole Church: an uninterrupted task, for she is “at once holy and always in need of purification” (CCC 1428, quoting Lumen Gentium 8). The fast ends, but the turning does not.
Why does the Book of Jonah end with a question and no answer?
Because the reader must give it. We are not told whether Jonah came round. The only other prophetic book that ends on a question is Nahum (3:19), which also concerns Nineveh, and it speaks of her cruelty. Scripture lets both stand: the crimes of Nineveh are real, and God's mercy reaches even them.
Moonnu Nombu concludes today. It is a small fast before the Great Fast, a rehearsal for repentance. Today we also remember St Agnes, the young Roman virgin and martyr (died about the year 304). St Ambrose, in his work on virgins, speaks of her as a girl of about twelve. She reminds us that the response to Christ can be total at any age. The Church Unity Octave continues, and all the readings about Nineveh make a fitting prayer for it: God's concern is wider than our circle.