Luke uses Jonah as a sign, or pre-figuring, of the way in which Jesus would bring salvation to the world. Not as a warrior - saviour, but as a quiet, suffering but irresistible force.

Jonah was tasked by God to go and save a sinful nation, but refused, perhaps believing himself to be unworthy. When God did convert them, Jonah was not happy, because they were not Jews - they were the other, not us. Jesus was crucified because he also was a sign of contradiction, and this riled against the hearts of many. The contrast between the unwilling but successful servant of God, and the willing but (in human terms) failure that was Jesus.

Solomon was thought to be the seat of all wisdom - even the heathen queen of the south came to hear him - and in another balance, Jesus is shown out as a fool. The author Luke is using these balances of opposites to emphasise the important difference between all those that went before, and the one true saviour, Jesus.

Jesus overturns all this - by rising from the dead he lifts us all out of the traps we have set for ourselves by relying on ancient wisdoms and ancient sets of values. We do not have to be wise, nor do we have to be strong.

We just need to accept that Christ has saved us.

The imagery is striking - there will be a dividing up, the goodies will be let in to heaven, the bodies left to rot and burn in hell.

We need to caution ourselves, as Christ came to bring salvation to all who will accept it. So expect to see some surprising characters in heaven - as everyone can be healed and transformed by Christ. There may not be nearly as Manny goats as one might imagine!

And then look at this parable again. It twice says - thereby emphasising - that our actions to the weak and needy in the world are what God is looking for. So ensure that when you can, you act for them. You will then be acting out Christs' salvation in you, and also bringing it closer to others. Remember next time that you buy a homeless person a coffee and a sandwich, or next time you choose to walk rather than use a car and thus reduce your carbon footprint, that little good you did is 'done unto me'. And Christ will remember.

Someone once reproved the journalist and novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-66), whose waspish temper, infidelities and indiscretions were infamous, of being a bad Catholic.  “All that you say is true,” he replied, “but imagine what kind of man I would be if I weren’t a Catholic!”

God doesn’t call us when we are cleaned up, dressed and presentable, like the parody of a Victorian father.  Instead, his interest in us is at its height when we are most in need.  And when we think ourselves righteous his eye hones in on the secret sins within us that are sapping our strength and making us more vulnerable to the wiles and deceits of the devil. [cf John 2.25]

All the sacraments have as their goal restoring us to right relationship with God, with our neighbours, and with ourselves.   Sins unacknowledged eat away at us, but sins confessed become the royal road for God to enter our lives and make us whole.  We dwell in him because we first allow him to dwell in us. [John 14.23] His presence within us gives us the strength (the virtue) to resist and repel evil.

Lent calls us to fast not so much from harmful addictions and preoccupations but from things benign or even salutary in themselves that may be obscuring our vision of God. Israel in the wilderness hungered and endured privations not because the natural human desire for food and clothing is a bad thing [cf Matthew 6.25-33] but so that they could learn in their heart of hearts to trust in God alone. [Deuteronomy 8.1-6]

But our fasting can give us fresh opportunities for sharing our abundance with others, for healing not only the separation betwixt us and God but also the consequent disorderly relationship between us and our fellow human beings. [cf Luke 10.29-37]  As we pray in this season for new, revitalised hearts [Psalm 50(51).10], it is fitting for us to contemplate the ways that our choices and lifestyles enslave others and deprive them of what we all desire.  By our voluntary abstinence and by turning away from preferences that harm others we may all in this Lent discover afresh the ‘one thing necessary’ which neither sin nor Satan nor death can take from us. [cf Luke 10.41-42]

The first Psalm serves as a kind of ‘table of contents’ for the whole Psalter.  We can at times find ourselves tempted by the blandishments of those who live lives at variance with God. Their siren song entices us, and our divided hearts put up only desultory resistance.  We loiter and linger along their pathway, then sit down and make ourselves at home.  But the food they set before us leaves us unsatisfied [Isaiah 55.2], their promises of easy gratification we know in our truest and best selves to be deceptions.  And then suddenly before us our eyes recognise, if only faintly at first [cf Mark 8.22-25], a Tree whose vitality inspires us to dig deeply so that we may reach its Source.

Not for nothing were the earliest Christians described as being followers of The Way.
[cf Acts 22.4]  The Christian life is a journey, a style of life, not a goal [cf Philippians 3.12].   Summoned by a voice more compelling than any we have previously heard [Mark 1.17-18] we follow, falteringly but as best as we can, in his path. [Mark 10.52]

He declares himself to be The Way. [John 14.6] To follow in his way is to take the path of the Cross [Mark 8.34-35], a tree that seems at first to be unnecessary and unwelcome suffering but then reveals itself as a ladder that connects the penury of earth to the bounty of heaven, a pathway home to the Father who is already coming to meet us.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” [Genesis 3.19] God’s chilling declaration to our primal parents correlates sin—our sundered relationship to God—with death. [Romans 5.12; I Corinthians 15.22] 

Jesus offers three tools for the revitalisation, the renewal of life worthy of the name.
[John 10.10] These tools aren’t punishments so much as they are avenues for coming to our senses, returning to the embrace of a loving Father. [Luke 15.17-20]  These three tools are almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.  We arm ourselves with these weapons of self-restraint so that the Lord himself can show his pity on us, can receive us as his sons and daughters. [Hebrews 12.5-13]

The promise of the Resurrection of Christ is that his victory over death is a sign and earnest of the triumph that all his brothers and sisters [cf Luke 8.19] will share.  St Paul describes Our Lord as the ‘first fruits’ [cf I Corinthians 15.20-28], the beginnings of a great harvest that will come to its fruition in the ‘life of the world to come’ as we confess in the Nicene Creed.  

St James’ use of the phrase in today’s reading is therefore noteworthy.  ‘By his own choice he made us his children by the message of the truth so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all that he had created.’  The ‘he’, of course, is the God whom he describes as ‘the Father of all light’.  Creation is the act of his will, the working out of a purpose which is central to his Heart
[cf Ephesians 1.3-14].  We may be described as God’s children because we were created by him [cf Genesis 1.26-27], but even more we are his children because his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, has claimed us as his brothers and sisters. [cf Romans 8.14-17; Galatians 3.29; 4.4-7]  As we enter once again upon our annual journey through the passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord, may our faith be strengthened that we, too, were created not for death but for life—life ‘worthy of the name’.  [John 10.10]

St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict, consecrated her life to God from her earliest youth. After her brother went to Monte Cassino, where he established his famous monastery, she took up her abode in the neighborhood at Plombariola, where she founded and governed a monastery of nuns, about five miles from that of St. Benedict, who, it appears, also directed his sister and her nuns. She visited her brother once a year, and as she was not allowed to enter his monastery, he went in company with some of his brethren to meet her at a house some distance away. These visits were spent in conferring together on spiritual matters. On one occasion they had passed the time as usual in prayer and pious conversation and in the evening they sat down to take their reflection. St. Scholastica begged her brother to remain until the next day. St. Benedict refused to spend the night outside his monastery. She had recourse to prayer and a furious thunderstorm burst so that neither St. Benedict nor any of his companions could return home. They spent the night in spiritual conferences. The next morning they parted to meet no more on earth. Three days later St. Scholastica died, and her holy brother beheld her soul in a vision as it ascended into heaven. He sent his brethren to bring her body to his monastery and laid it in the tomb he had prepared for himself. She died about the year 543, and St. Benedict followed her soon after. Her feast day is February 10th.