Homily, 10-9-23; Monday of the 27th Week of Ordinary Time:
Angels are God’s messengers. As I talked about in last week’s homily, they can communicate with us in many ways. Being God’s messengers is what makes them angels. St. Augustine says: “‘Angel’ is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is ‘spirit’; if you seek the name of their office, it is ‘angel’: from what they are, ‘spirit’, from what they do, ‘angel.’” Bringing messages is their job.
An angel brought a message to Jonah. “This is the word of the LORD that came to Jonah… ‘Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; their wickedness has come up before me.’” But Jonah rejected the call and tried to run away in the opposite direction. And we might be tempted to be critical of Jonah, to sit in judgement of his behavior. That is, until we reflect on our own behavior. I think most of us can look back on our lives and realize the many times that God has sent us messengers with thoughts, words, and urgings that we found difficult to accept, messages that we have ignored and rejected. It might have been in little things like when a little voice tells us we shouldn’t pass along some gossip, but we do it anyways. Or maybe it had something to do with a major life decision.
The good news is that God gives us second chances as He did to Jonah. God does not give up on us as long as we don’t give up on Him, doing His will and searching for His truth. And searching for God is evident in the story of Jonah when we look at his shipmates. They were pagans, they did not know the true God, but they believed in the existence of a god who was capable of controlling the seas. They had an inherent knowledge of right and wrong. They were reluctant to toss Jonah into the sea even after they identified that he was the cause of their dilemma. At first they simply rowed harder, concerned that God would punish them for the crime of murder. St. Jerome wrote in a commentary: “How great is the faith of these sailors! They find themselves in terrible danger, and plead for the life of another; they know that the spiritual death of sin is worse than physical death.”
The sailors had an imperfect knowledge of God, but they had His law written on their heart. God communicated with them, probably through their guardian angels, about how they should behave. Let our hearts be supple to hear and accept the messages that God sends our way. Let us pray for the strength to be obedient and not run in the opposite direction.