Hopeless task

At a certain point we may look at our lives and despair.

Even in our spiritual lives, we may look at ourselves - how intractable our faults and our sinfulness, how weak our efforts at prayer or service, how frequently we have backslidden – and we may despair of any real improvement, let alone anything approaching real holiness.

In today’s first reading, the prophet Jonah has reason to despair as he faces an incredibly daunting task: walk through the huge city of Nineveh and bring its inhabitants to repentance (this task would be daunting even today: Nineveh is in present-day Iraq – right across the river from the hotspot of Mosul).

Yet Jonah, despite some earlier resistance, goes forward anyway and does the right thing: preaching even though it seems a hopeless task

For their part, the Ninevites have reason to despair as they face imminent destruction, yet they go forward anyway and do the right thing: repenting even though it seems a hopeless task.

And, by the power of God... the hopeless task meets with miraculous success.

The people repented – every last one of them - and were spared.

That is part of what our Lord means in Luke’s Gospel by “the sign of Jonah” – an unexpectedly effective – indeed, miraculous – manifestation of God’s power to change people’s lives.

We must always turn away from despair (and from presumption) and go forward with faith and humility, doing the right thing even when it seems a hopeless task, for God’s power and love is unstoppable.