Written by Robert Barron, a contemporary Catholic bishop. This is an excerpt from his book “Lenten Gospel Reflections.}.
[In the] Gospel, some Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign. And Jesus replies, “No sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah,” who was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, foreshadowing Jesus’ death and Resurrection. Jonah was called by God to preach conversion to Nineveh, which is described as an enormously large city. It took, they said, three days to walk through it. I can’t help but think of Nineveh as one of our large, modern cities, a center of all sorts of worldly activity and preoccupation. What would its conversion look like? A turning back to God as the only enduring good. After hearing the word of Jonah, the Ninevites “proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth” (Jonah 3:5). What is the purpose of these ascetic practices? To wean people away from an attachment to worldly pleasures. Go beyond the mind that you have. Repent. Live as though nothing in this world finally matters. And you will be living in the kingdom of God!
This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. [Luke 29-30]
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