Name: Kathryn Shaughnessy
Title: Associate Professor
Department/College: University Libraries
Scripture of the Day: JON 3: 1-10; LK 11: 29-32
“A heart contrite and humbled”
Nobody likes bad news, but even less welcome is “bad news” that points out where I am wrong and requires me to make a profound change.
Today’s first reading about Jonah delivering bad news to the city of Nineveh led me to marvel at the willingness of the people and the King to not only hear it, but also to “believe God” and to make profound personal changes. Without a true openness to hearing bad news, and without a willingness to believe and go to extraordinary personal lengths, the king and the city would have perished.
The Gospel message brought the same point home even more clearly: Jesus’ religious contemporaries were unwilling to listen, believe, and change, even though they were presumably “on the lookout” for the Messiah. Of all people, they should have recognized that Jesus and his message were greater than Jonah and his message.
The readings challenge us to examine how we react to bad news, especially if it points to our own failure to live up to a personal, professional, or religious standard—especially a failure to live up to our professed religion or spirituality.
Are we open to new information or a viewpoint if it is one we would rather not hear and perhaps conflicts with the world as we have been used to seeing it? Are we willing to hear that we may be wrong when we thought we were “right” or “righteous”?
At a basic level, these readings, and this holy season, challenge us to humility in thought and in justice; it challenges us to ask what we need to change in order to live up to what we profess.
Read more reflections from Come Back to Me: Lenten Reflections from St. John’s University.