of Kingsport, Inc.
Out for a ride...a rare sunny day in Kingsport
A meditation to help you on your
journey with Jesus.
B Rev. Roland Hautz, St. Bernard Catholic Church, Gate City, VA
The people of Nineveh believed God, they
proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
(Jonah 3:5)
Jonah was a deeply spiri-tual person, called by God to be a Prophet.
He loved his own people, and was both fearful and resentful of the vicious, cruel Assyrians, who destroyed his land and the Temple of God.
Yet, when God told him to go to Nineveh and preach to the people there, he did his best to avoid the assignment;
He went down to Joppa and took a ship to Tarshish, a Sematic mining colony of the coast of Spain. That was the furtherest point he could find in the opposite direction of where God had told him to go.
He may have hoped that in his absence, God would select another prophet to sent.
Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrians, the fierce and vicious warriors who were famous for their cruelty.
Jonah hated them, and the very thought of trying to save them seemed very repugnant to him.
But after he paid his fare and went on shipboard, he went below decks and fell asleep.
At sea, a great storm came up and the ship was in danger of sinking. The sailors, in terror, prayed to their pagan gods but the storm only intensified.
The seamen cast lots to determine who was to blame, and the choice fell to Jonah. They awakened their passenger and told him of the results. Jonah freely admitted that he was running away from God’s assignment to him, and accepted the responsibility for the storm.
Although the sailors did not want to do so, Jonah persuaded them to throw him overboard into the raging sea.
God prepared a great fish to swallow him and then spit him out on the shore.
Is the story accurate, or is it merely an allegory to illustrate a point?
Scholars are divided on that point. But one thing is definite. The Book tells us that we can’t outrun God and that He loves our enemies as well as us, for the whole world is part of His creation.
Jesus Told Us to
Love, Even Our Enemies!
One day President Abraham Lincoln was speaking kindly to a Confederate soldier.
A woman was shocked at this and said “Mr. President, it seems to me that we should do well to concentrate our energies on destroying our enemy, not befriending him.”
President Lincoln replied: “Madam, the best way to destroy our enemy is to befriend him.”
Lincoln had learned the lesson Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies; pray for your persecutors.” (Matt. 5:44)
Martin Luther King also knew that lesson well. He said “Do to us what you will and we will continue to love you….... Throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes, threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom. But not only for ourselves. — We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you over in the process, and our victory will be a double victory!”
This thought was captured by a poet who wrote:
“He drew a circle that shut me out —
heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win: —
we drew a circle that took him in.”
“Today’s popular Christian hymn, based on the 9th century hymn “Ubi Caritas,” also says it well:
“Where Charity and Love prevail,
there God is ever found.
Brought here together by His love,
by love are we thus bound.
With grateful joy and holy fear,
God’s charity we learn.
Let us with heart and mind and soul
now love God in return.
Forgive we now each other's faults,
as we our faults confess,
And let us love each other well,
in Christian holiness.
Let strife among us be unknown,
let all contention cease;
Be God’s the glory that we seek,
be ours God’s holy Peace.
Let us recall that in our midst
dwells God’s Begotten Son.
As members of His Body joined,
we are in Christ made one.