Homilies

February 13, 2008
Wednesday of the 1st Week of Lent
Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 11:29-32
Fr. Justin Sheehan

Every liturgy of the Word is also a liturgy of silence, a celebration of what God has done personally for each*member of the assembly. The words of scripture come from the silence of God, and in that silence he speaks to the soul that is silent, not usually in different words, but in the same words that everyone else hears in the readings. God does speak to us personally, he does give us a sign, but it is the same sign he gives to everyone; the sign of Jonah, the sign of Jesus, and of everyone who spoke the Word of God in scripture. We hear God speak to us personally only to the extent that we listen, in silence and faith, to the message that he addresses to everyone.

We are not told that any of the Ninivites argued with Jonah, or asked him for a sign to show that he was from God. None of them kidded themselves by saying that Jonah's preaching was meant for all the other Ninivites The text simply says that the people of Nineveh believed in God, and made efforts to renounce their evil behavior. There were no miracles or inner locutions; to the Ninivites Jonah himself was God's sign, and Jonah's words were God's message to each one of them personally.

The words of the Gospel come out of the same silence of God. Jesus himself is God's sign, just as Jonah was God's message to the Ninivites and Solomon was God's wisdom to the Queen of Sheba. If we want to hear God speak to us personally, he does so in the words of Jesus and in all the words of scripture. We can improve our hearing by silencing and desire for personal inspirations or for signs of things to come. Our spiritual life is lived in the great silence of faith, which is an awakening to the truths that God has revealed to me personally in revealing them to the whole world. The spiritual value of our silence comes from our attentiveness to the invisible realities surrounding God's Word and from our efforts to live by it. It is only when we orientate ourselves toward these realities that the voices of our personal passions are quieted. In silence we can hear God speaking not only to every human heart, but to my human heart, in the same words he uses with everyone.

In the same silence we commune with the silence of God, and that communing is a form of prayer. God's word leads us to recognize that God has always been speaking to us personally and filling our lives with his presence. Our intimate conviction that God's message is for us and that he is always speaking to us personally through his Word enables us to give up any desire for further signs from God. We live by faith in the Son of God who loves me, and not by special signs of his favor, because his word addressed to me personally is already a sufficient sign of his favor. We have only to listen in silence, so that we can hear the note of adoration, the note of charity pursuing the unseen Beloved God until our personal story becomes common knowledge in the universe.