Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Mt 12: 38-42
July 24, 2023 | Monday
Then, some teachers of the law and some Pharisees spoke up, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” Jesus answered them, “An evil and unfaithful people want a sign; but no sign will be given, them except the sign of the prophet Jonah. In the same way, as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. At the judgment, the people of Nineveh will rise with this generation, and condemn it; because they reformed their lives at the preaching of Jonah, and here, there is greater than Jonah. At the judgment, the Queen of the South will stand up and condemn you. She came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and here, there is greater than Solomon.
Today’s Reflection:
The gospel speaks of Jonah having a double symbolism. First, he provides a type of Jesus’ death and resurrection by his being swallowed by the great fish and then being deposited alive on dry land. The similarity lies not in the fact that Jonah survives his three-day stay in the fish’s belly, but rather, the similarity resides in the death and resurrection experienced by both Jonah and Jesus. The other symbolism of Jonah with Jesus concerns his preaching of repentance. Jonah, a reluctant preacher, tries to avoid God’s commission to preach repentance to Nineveh by going in the opposite direction to Tarshish. Despite his unwillingness, he eventually does preach repentance to the people of Nineveh and their repentance preserves them from destruction. What are your moments of death and resurrection? If you can be
considered a sign, what sign do you signify?? /Vulnerasti, 2023
