Funeral Homily: Rev. Francis J. Giudice

 

Rev. Francis J. Giudice

1928-2021

(This homily was given by Fr. Raymond Suriani at the funeral Mass of Fr. Francis J. Giudice at Immaculate Conception Church, Westerly, R.I.  Read 2 Corinthians 5:1-10; John 14:1-6.)

 [For the audio version of this homily, click here: Funeral Homily for Fr. Giudice]

 

I want to begin this morning by saying that it’s an honor to preach at Fr. Giudice’s funeral Mass today, as I’m sure it was an honor for him to preach at the very first Mass that was ever celebrated in this church building back in 1968.  I did not know that little fact until Fr. Capoverdi told me earlier this week—and I definitely wanted to mention it in my homily, because I think it shows just how much Fr. Giudice meant to the people of Westerly in general and to the people of Immaculate Conception Parish in particular. 

And speaking of homilies …

On February 20, 2016 Fr. Paul Scalia celebrated the funeral Mass for his father, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  I’m sure many of you saw the event on television that day—or at least saw news reports about it afterward.   Fr. Scalia began his homily at that Mass with these words:

We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more; a man loved by many, scorned by others; a man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.

 

I’m sure that was news to more than a few people in the congregation that day, but it was true nonetheless.  Jesus Christ was at the center of that funeral Mass in 2016, and he is at the center of every funeral Mass—including the one we celebrate today for Fr. Giudice.

Fr. Scalia then explained why this is the case.  He said,

 

It is He Whom we proclaim: Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of the Father. It is because of Him, because of His life, death and resurrection that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, but in confidence we commend Antonin Scalia to the mercy of God.

This morning we do the same thing for Fr. Giudice: we mourn for him, yes, but we mourn IN HOPE; and at the same time we commend his soul in hope to the mercy of God.

Fr. Scalia then told that congregation that they needed to look in 3 directions:  

to yesterday, in thanksgiving; to today, in petition; and into eternity with hope.

That’s an example we also need to follow today.

 First, we need to look to the past with gratitude …

 

•          To Jesus, for what our Lord did for Fr. Giudice and for all of us by his passion, death and resurrection, and for the share Jesus gives to all of us in the fruits of his redemptive work.  Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves (because we’re not divine): he atoned for the sins of the world; he made it possible to receive forgiveness for any and every sin, and he opened the gates of heaven to those who are united to him in this life through baptism, faith and charity.  Hopefully we all believe that.  Fr. Giudice certainly did.  That’s the Good News he preached for more than 60 years of his life to all who would listen.

 

•          We also look to the past with gratitude to the Lord for all the gifts, talents and blessings he gave to Fr. Giudice in his life, and to others thru him.

The best way I can do this, I think, is by sharing with you a few of the things I said at Fr. Giudice’s 50^th anniversary Mass back in 2006.  (Some of you were probably present for that celebration.)  There I mentioned 3 important lessons I had learned from him since the early 1960s, when I first met him as a little boy at Holy Angels’ Church in Barrington, where Father Giudice was serving at the time as the assistant pastor.

Those of you who were here in 2006 will remember that I began that day by mentioning 3 lessons that I (happily) did NOT learn from Fr. Giudice: #1—how to drive a car.  I used to call his car the “demolition derby mobile”—you can guess why.  If you want more information on that, speak to his nephew Richard.  Lesson #2 that I did NOT learn from Fr. Giudice was how to clean my room.  If you ever had the experience of seeing his quarters at the Cathedral or even at St. Pius you will never forget it.  You can ask his nephew Stephen about that.  And lesson #3 that I did NOT learn from Fr. Giudice was the lesson on how to turn off the alarm system at St. Pius X Rectory.  People in town who had police scanners when Fr. Giudice was living at St. Pius must have thought we were getting robbed every other day!

But, happily, there were other lessons—good and noble lessons—that I did learn from him: lessons that have helped to form me as a priest and as a person. 

Lesson #1: He’s worth it.  Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is worth it: he’s worth investing your life in!

Fr. Giudice taught me that lesson from the very earliest days of his priesthood.  As he liked to tell people, I was his is altar boy at Holy Angels in Barrington in the mid-1960s.  Back then I looked up to him—literally as well as figuratively speaking.  And there was a good reason for that: he was a happy priest—a visibly happy priest—who clearly loved what he was doing.  Even as a small child I picked that up.  He understood the importance of his ministry; he found deep personal fulfillment in bringing Jesus Christ to people in word and sacrament.  Even as a little boy I could tell that Fr. Giudice was someone who really believed in the very depths of his heart that Jesus Christ was worth investing your life in. 

And 20 years later, after I was ordained a priest myself, I found out that he was right.

The second important lesson that Fr. Giudice taught me (and that I’m grateful to God for) is the very same one that St. James taught the world in his New Testament letter: Faith without works is dead. 

Anyone who knew Fr. Giudice, knew how much he cared for the poor and for those in need.  His faith was clearly evident in the many loving, charitable works he did on their behalf.  It’s not a coincidence that he was the first Vicar for Community Affairs here in our diocese, working even with state agencies to improve living conditions and give educational opportunities to the needy in Rhode Island. 

But his love was not provincial; as most of us know it extended far beyond the borders of our state to one of the poorest countries on earth, Haiti.  Through an organization he established, Providence-Haiti Outreach, Father Giudice worked to provide health care, education, food, shelter, and religious instruction to the poorest of the poor in that tiny nation.  It’s a cause that was near and dear to his heart.  And he didn’t just ask other people to support it financially (although he was really good at doing that!): he also did it himself.  For example, when we gave him checks for the Masses and services he provided for us at St. Pius (which is what you normally do when a guest priest helps you in your parish), those checks were never made out to him personally: they were always made out to “Providence-Haiti Outreach.”

Which, by the way, is an organization that’s still worth supporting.  (I know he’d want me to mention that today.)

The third important lesson I learned from Fr. Giudice concerns the crosses of this life.  Everyone has crosses, of course—they’re part of the human experience in a world tainted by original sin.  But for the disciple of Jesus Christ, the cross is never the final chapter of the story—as the cross was not the final chapter in the story of Jesus.  Every cross leads to a resurrection—even at times in this life.  Fr. Giudice taught me that.  Now it’s true—the actual resurrection of the body is a FUTURE reality for us; it will only happen at the end of time.  But if we trust in the Lord and are obedient to him right now—in the midst of our present earthly sufferings—we will have little “resurrection experiences” even on this side of the grave.  Like Fr. Giudice had in Barrington when I first met him over 5 decades ago. 

In case you don’t know the story, he had been sent away after ordination by the bishop to do graduate studies in hospital administration at St. Louis University.  Naturally, when he had finished his degree, he thought he’d be given a big administrative post in one of our diocesan hospitals—St. Joe’s or Fatima.  And he was excited about that; it’s what he’d been preparing to do.  Unfortunately, however, he made the mistake of running into Bishop McVinney on a day when the bishop needed to find a curate for a small, Italian parish in Barrington: a parish community that had no money, bad facilities and terrible morale.

It was the last place on earth he wanted to be assigned!  But he obeyed, took up his cross, and made the best of it. 

When he got there he soon realized that the people needed something to bring them together as a community and give them a sense of self-worth, so he proposed the idea of building a brand new church.  In doing that he almost gave the old pastor, Fr. Iannetta, a heart attack!  Fr. Iannetta didn’t think it could be done; almost nobody thought it could be done—the parish had a terrible track record of financial giving at the time—but it was built and paid for within a few short years. 

And Fr. Giudice not only helped to erect a new church in Barrington; even more importantly he helped to “resurrect” the faith of the people there, sowing the seeds of 4 priestly vocations in the process: Yours Truly; Fr. James Ruggieri; Fr. Angelo Carusi; and Fr. John Codega.

For Fr. Giudice, the cross was not the end of his story in Barrington.  I and the 3 other priests who’ve been ordained from Holy Angels since 1985 are living proof of that.

Today I thank God for teaching me these 3 important lessons of life—and I thank Fr. Giudice for being God’s instrument in that regard.

Some of you, I’m sure, have similar stories from your own lives.

After Fr. Scalia said we should look to the past with gratitude at a funeral, he said that we need to look to the present moment in petition. That means, quite simply, that today we need to pray for Fr. Giudice and for the repose of his soul.  Many people who die in the state of grace (probably most people—including most priests) need to experience a final purification before they can enter God’s eternal kingdom—and God provides that purification in what we call “purgatory”.  This is why we pray for the dead; this is why we have Masses said for our deceased relatives and friends.  Our Masses and prayers help them to pass through that purification process more quickly.

May this Mass—and our personal prayers today and in the future—help Fr. Giudice.  And if he doesn’t need the help, may they assist another soul who does.

And finally, Fr. Scalia said that we need to look to the future at a funeral; we need, as he put it, to look “into eternity with hope.”

This hope we’re supposed to have in the face of death was expressed beautifully in the first line of our second reading where St. Paul says:

 

For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven. 

 

And in the gospel, where Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”

We pray that Fr. Francis J. Giudice already is—or will soon be—occupying one of those dwelling places, the one Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior prepared for him.

And we pray that we will someday join him in the one God has prepared for us.

Since I began this homily with a quote from Fr. Paul Scalia, I will end with one more quote from him.  These were the final words of his homily at his father’s funeral Mass.  This morning I say them with Fr. Giudice in mind:

 

Jesus himself becomes present here today, under the form of bread and wine, so that we can unite all of our prayers of thanksgiving, sorrow and petition with Christ himself, as an offering to the Father. And all of this, with a view to eternity—stretching towards heaven—where we hope to enjoy that perfect union with God himself and to see Fr. Francis J. Giudice again, and with him to rejoice in the communion of saints.  Amen.

 

‘The Pain Chain’ and How to Break It

 

(Fifth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on February 7, 2021, at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Job 7:1-4, 6-7; Psalm 147:1-6; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fifth Sunday 2021]

You’ve probably never heard of “the pain chain”.

That’s because I made up the term for this homily!

But, in all likelihood, you have experienced it—many times.

Pain, of course, is a fact of life.  We can’t escape it totally, no matter how hard we may try.

And there are various types of pain.  There’s physical pain; there’s mental or emotional pain; there’s even what might be called “spiritual pain”—which often results from physical and/or emotional pain.  For example, we contract a disease or we experience a broken relationship, and we wonder if God still loves us; we wonder if the Lord is with us and cares about what we’re going through.

And that wondering causes spiritual pain.

Job, in today’s first reading, is clearly a man who’s in the process of experiencing all 3 of these types of pain—TO THE MAX!  And it all stemmed from one bad day—one very bad day!

Most of us know the story.  The Bible makes it clear that Job was a good, pious, devout, righteous man.

And then, during the course of one 24 hour period, he lost everything: all his animals were either stolen or killed; all his children died when the house they were in collapsed during a terrible windstorm, and he himself was afflicted with a horrible skin disease in which painful boils appeared all over his body.

He was in physical pain; he was in emotional distress—and he wondered why God had allowed him to be afflicted in that way.

He finally got to the point where he said those words we heard in our first reading:

Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?  Are not his days those of hirelings? … So I have been assigned months of misery and troubled nights have been allotted to me. … My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.  Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.

Here we have a perfect example of a man who was shackled by what I would call “the pain chain.”  The pain chain has 3 links in it: one is “the past”; one is “the present”; and one is “the future”.

Job was experiencing pain in the present moment as he sat there in sackcloth and ashes.  The problem was that he wasn’t only experiencing the pain of the present moment!  He was also, in a certain sense, experiencing pain from his past and pain from his future life—which made the situation much worse.

Notice his first statement: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?”

Job’s life was not a drudgery before he had his “bad day”!  It was anything but a drudgery!  It was awesome!  He had good health, and a loving family, and lots and lots of earthly possessions.  From a strictly worldly perspective, the guy had it all!

And yet, in the midst of his present suffering, the only things he was conscious of from his past were the bad things: the sufferings, the trials, the pain (however minimal it might have been).

And then he proceeded to project his present suffering on the future, saying, “I shall not see happiness again.”  [By the way, I think that’s something some people have been saying during this pandemic.]

How, in heaven’s name, did Job know that?  How did he know that he would never, ever, ever experience a single moment of happiness for the rest of his days on planet earth?

The answer is, he DIDN’T know it!  [Just like we don’t know what the post-pandemic world will be like.]

But once again, in the midst of his present suffering and pain, all Job could imagine for his future was more suffering and more pain.

Pain in the present moment (link #1), added to pain from the past (link #2), added to anticipated pain in the future (link #3).

That’s “the pain chain”.

It shackled Job, and it can also shackle us at various points in our lives—as most of us (if not all of us) know from personal experience.

So how are we supposed to deal with it?  How do we go about breaking the pain chain?

This is very important to know because if the pain chain does not get broken, it can eventually lead us to despair.

From my perspective—and from my experience—there are 3 realities that will break the pain chain, especially when we experience them together.

Those realities are faith, hope and love (which should make them pretty easy to remember!).

By faith we know that “For those who love God all things [including our pain and suffering] work together for good”—as St. Paul tells us in Romans 8.  By faith we know that God will not allow us to be tested beyond our strength—as St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10.  And, as today’s responsorial psalm reminds us, God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Faith—real faith that’s rooted in truths like these—breaks the pain chain.

So does hope.  Hope focuses us on the reality of eternal life—which means that every problem, every suffering, every pain that we have in this life is ultimately only temporary.  Understanding that makes a difference!  Notice that Job lacked this hope when he spoke those words we heard in our first reading.  There he said, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.”

And when we experience the love of God—either directly or through other people—that, too, breaks the pain chain.

A woman who was battling a very serious form of cancer said to me one day, “Fr. Ray, I know now why God allowed me to get this illness.  He allowed me to get it because, without it, I never would have gotten as close to him as I am right now.”

In the midst of her physical, emotional and spiritual pain, that woman had faith, hope and love: faith that God was at work in her life and still loved her, and hope that God would continue to draw her closer to himself unto eternity.

Faith, hope and love were breaking her pain chain—at least for the moment.  The challenge she faced was the challenge to continue to seek those gifts of faith, hope and love, so that her pain chain would remain broken—even if she was never physically healed.

Jesus once said, “Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”  Put in the terms of this homily that means, “The pain of today is enough for us to deal with.  We don’t need to add any real pain from our past or any imagined pain from our future—like Job did.”

Which is one of the most important reasons why we should ask the Lord to fill our hearts with faith—and with hope—and with love EVERY DAY!

 

Jesus’ War—and Ours

(Fourth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on January 31, 2021 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 95:1-9; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fourth Sunday 2021]

 

The quickest way to get defeated in a war is to think that you’re not in one, when in fact you are.

I think St. Mark would like that opening line of my homily this morning.  He’d like it because “war” is one of the themes of the gospel he wrote 2,000 years ago (which is the gospel that we will hear on most Sundays from now until the end of the liturgical year in November).

And this war that Mark writes about is no ordinary war over things that don’t last (like earthly power and land and material possessions).  The war that Mark writes about in his gospel is a cosmic war: a cosmic war that affects the eternal destiny of every person who has lived, is living, and will live until the end of time.

This war is, of course, between Jesus and Satan.  And, although it had already been going on since Jesus’ birth (and, in a certain sense even before that), the war definitely intensified at the very beginning of our Lord’s earthly ministry.  We see that in today’s gospel story from Mark, chapter 1.  Here we are, only 21 verses into the book, and Jesus already has a major confrontation with the devil and his minions.  Notice the combative language that the demons use when addressing our Lord.  They say to him, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?”

That’s what armies do in war, is it not?  They kill their enemies and they destroy things.

Now the good news is that Jesus has won the war!  Cosmically speaking, the war against Satan was won by our Lord through his passion, death and resurrection.  That’s the victory we celebrate at this and every Mass.

But the war continues against US!  Yes, Jesus has conquered the devil and made eternal life possible for us and for every human person.  However, we’re not there yet!  We haven’t arrived.  For us, the fight—the fight of faith—is not over.

Here it’s important to note the fact that the devil is a very poor loser.

His attitude is, “I couldn’t get Jesus, but I can still get those pathetic human creatures that he loves so much.”  And he will try to do that, you can be sure, each and every day for the rest of our time here on planet earth.

In chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation we read these words: “Then the dragon [i.e. Satan] became angry with the woman [Mary] and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.”

That’s us!

This is the war which is going on in your life and mine, whether we are conscious of it or not.  And many, unfortunately, are not.  Which is scary because, as I said at the very beginning of my homily, the quickest way to get defeated in a war is to think that you’re not in one, when in fact you are.

Of course, to win a war decisively, you need to know your enemy and the strategies he’s using to try to defeat you.  Catholic author Jon Horvatt II dealt with that subject in an online article he wrote a couple of years ago. The article was about four of the strategies that Satan uses in the modern world to draw people away from Christ and to himself.

And eventually, of course, into hell.

I’ll share them with you this morning very briefly, because they can help us to understand our enemy, the devil, and how he trying, each and every day, to defeat us.

The first strategy the devil uses against people is to try to convince them that he doesn’t exist.  As Jon Horvatt puts it in his article, “[Satan] has sought by all means to cause mankind to disbelieve in him.  He encourages a culture which spreads the idea that he does not exist or is not a threat.  Once his existence is called into question, it is only a small step to convince mankind that moral evil in any form does not exist.  Hence, disbelief in Satan destroys the need to fight against evil and our vices.”

The second strategy of the devil builds on the first, and it’s to undermine people’s faith in God.  Horvatt writes, “To disbelieve in Satan is to be logically committed to a disbelief in God. By this strategy, the devil deprives us of our greatest and most powerful support in the fight against evil. He deprives us of the means for victory since God will always triumph over the devil.”

Sadly, according to many of the polls that have been taken in recent years, this strategy of the evil one is currently meeting with great success, since more and more people are identifying themselves as “nones” (that’s n-o-n-e-s, not n-u-n-s).  Nones are those who claim no religious affiliation whatsoever.  Some of them may not believe in God at all.  Others in this group might believe in a god of some kind, but it’s more than likely a god that they’ve created in their own image and likeness—which is always a very flawed god (and certainly not the real one!).

Satan’s third strategy to steal souls and bring them to hell is to disguise evil to make it look good.  Unfortunately this is another strategy that seems to be working these days—especially in our country.  Think of all the moral evils that people in our society approve of and promote as “good”: abortion, physician-assisted suicide, so-called gay marriage, gender ideology and all that goes with it—even living together before marriage.  After the summer of 2020 you can add rioting and looting and burning down cities to the list.  All these things were once considered bad and sinful by almost everybody.

But not anymore!

Whose work is that?  Well it’s not God’s, that’s for sure!  He’s not responsible for these changes in morality.

This brings me to the final strategy that Satan uses in his war against us: He tries to get us to change the order of our priorities.

Now that may not seem like a big deal at first glance, but it can be.  For example, in non-pandemic times, why aren’t Catholic churches filled to capacity each and every week?  In non-pandemic times why aren’t there as many people at Mass on a normal Sunday as are there in church on Christmas and Easter?

It’s because of priorities!

Unfortunately, for “Christmas and Easter Catholics” worshipping Jesus and receiving his Body and Blood on a weekly basis is not at the top of their priority list.  It’s probably not on their list of priorities at all.

Once again, that’s not the work of the Lord.

The quickest way to get defeated in a war is to think that you’re not in one, when in fact you are.

Well, now we know!  Now we know that we are, indeed, in a war; we know who our enemy is; and we know some of his tactics and strategies.

But, most importantly, we know the One who can give us a share in the victory he’s already achieved over our enemy, if we remain close to him and constantly seek his help.  As St. John tells us in his first letter, “Greater is he who is in us [Jesus] than he who is in the world [Satan].”

Let me end now with a little quote from C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia.  Lewis wrote, “Christianity is a ‘fighting religion’ – not in the sense of hatred or violence directed at other persons, but rather in the spiritual struggle against the evil in ourselves and in the world around us, where our weapons are love, justice, courage and self-giving.”

May Almighty God help us with his grace—every day—to use these weapons and win the war!

Will It Be ‘Forgiveness and Freedom’ or ‘Unforgiveness and the Torturers’?

(Third Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on January 24, 2021 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Jonah 3:1-10; Psalm 25:4-9; 1 Corinthians:29-31; Mark 1:14-20.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Third Sunday 2021]

 

I once heard a story about a Catholic school teacher who wanted to teach her students a lesson about forgiveness.  So she asked them to bring two items to class one day: the first was a large, sturdy plastic bag; the second was a sack of potatoes from the local grocery store.  And for every person they could think of whom they refused to forgive, they were instructed to take one potato out of the sack, write the person’s name on it, and then place it in the plastic bag.

Well, unfortunately some students ended up with plastic bags that contained several potatoes.  I say “unfortunately,” because the teacher then told them that they would have to carry their potatoes around with them for a whole week!  She said, “You have to take them everywhere you go, and keep the bag over your shoulder whenever possible.  You have to take them with you when you go to visit your friends, when you do your chores, when you play, and when you eat.  You even have to put them beside you in bed when you sleep.”

Well, as you might imagine, those young people learned a very important lesson about forgiveness—by first learning a very important lesson about the consequences of unforgiveness!

Carrying around a bag of potatoes all week made those students miserable—which is exactly what unforgiveness does to us when we allow it to enter our hearts and take root there.  In addition to being a sin (and potentially a very serious one!), refusing to forgive other people drags us down mentally and emotionally.  As many of you will recall, Jesus made this point in Matthew 18, when he told a parable about a man who was forgiven a huge debt by his master, but who then refused to forgive the debt of a fellow servant, who owed him a much smaller amount of money.  When the master found out what his unforgiving servant had done, the Bible says he “handed him over to the torturers until he paid back what he owed.”  I once heard a preacher mention this text in a sermon, and he commented on it by saying, “Do you know what ‘the torturers’ are?  The torturers are: depression, anxiety, confusion, anger and the like.  These are the things that literally torture us when we refuse to forgive other people in our lives.”

One man who would certainly agree with this is the prophet—or, more properly, the reluctant prophet—Jonah.  We heard a short excerpt from his story in today’s first reading.  Your assignment for the week, by the way, is to open your Bible sometime during the next 7 days and read the rest of the Book of Jonah.  Read it from beginning to end.

“But, Fr. Ray, I don’t have time to do that.”

Oh yes, you do!  The Book of Jonah is one of the shortest books in the entire Bible!  It’s less than 3 pages long in most versions of Sacred Scripture—and that includes the introduction!

So don’t tell me you don’t have time.

The verses we heard this morning occur in the middle of the book.  Here the Lord commands Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and preach a message of repentance.  And Jonah goes—which he did NOT do at the beginning of the book when God called him the first time!  In fact, after the initial call he received Jonah got on the very first ship that he could find that was headed in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION, away from Nineveh!

Why, you ask?

Because Jonah hated the Ninevites, that’s why!  Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, which, at the time, was Israel’s arch-enemy.  Jonah knew the Lord was not only just; he knew the Lord was also forgiving and merciful.  And he had a sneaking suspicion that if he went to the Ninevites and told them to repent—and they did—then God would not allow their city to be destroyed.

But Jonah wanted the place destroyed!  He wanted to see the city of Nineveh go up in flames!  He wanted to see it “fry” like Sodom and Gomorrah had many years earlier!

So he ran away (actually, he sailed away—on a ship that was headed west toward Tarshish).

God said, “Not so fast, Jonah!” and he threw the ship into a terrible storm.  Jonah was tossed overboard in the middle of it and swallowed by a gigantic fish (which is sometimes referred to as a whale).

After spending 3 days and 3 nights inside this whale’s belly, God commanded the creature to spew Jonah up onto the shore—which is where today’s first reading picks up the story.

The Lord said, “Ok Jonah, let’s try this one more time.  Go to the people of Nineveh and tell them that unless they repent within 40 days their entire city will be destroyed.”

Now, to his credit, Jonah did learn his lesson.  He learned that it was probably not a good idea to disobey God a second time!  So, as we heard a few moments ago, he went to Nineveh—albeit begrudgingly—and he delivered the message the Lord told him to deliver.

And, almost immediately, the whole place repented—which, of course, was precisely what Jonah did NOT want to happen!

At that point, he allowed the ‘torturers’—the torturers that Jesus talked about in Matthew 18—to enter his heart full force, in particular anger and depression.

He whined; he pouted; he sulked; he told God that he had a “right” to be angry (I’m not sure where that right came from, but Jonah insisted that he had it).

And it got so bad that he eventually prayed for death!  He said, “I can’t deal with this anymore, Lord, so please take my life.”

He had the choice between forgiveness and freedom on the one hand, and unforgiveness and torture on the other; and, sadly, he chose the latter.

In fact, Jonah was more concerned about a dead plant (which died while he was sulking under it one day) than he was about the thousands of people in Nineveh, all of whom would have died had they not repented.

The Lord said (and here I quote): “[Jonah], you are concerned over [this] plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished.  And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?”

Now that, my brothers and sisters, is where the story ends.  What I just read to you are the final words of the Book of Jonah.

Which leaves inquiring minds like mine to wonder: What happened?  Did Jonah eventually change?  Did he allow God’s words to soften his heart?  Did he finally forgive the Ninevites and free himself from his anger and depression?

Or did he stubbornly cling to his unforgiveness and allow the torturers to continue to kill him, slowly, from the inside out?

We don’t know.  The Holy Spirit, through the inspired author of this book of Scripture, hasn’t told us—which is not a mistake or a coincidence.

The Book of Jonah ends the way it does, I believe, because God doesn’t want us to focus on Jonah’s situation all those centuries ago; he wants each of us to focus on our situation right now!  He wants us to read this short and very entertaining story, and then reflect on how we’re currently responding to the people who hurt us at work or at school or in some other location—or even within our own families.

You see, whether we realize it or not, the choice Jonah faced all those years ago is the same one we face whenever someone offends us now: forgiveness and freedom or unforgiveness and the torturers.

Let’s pray at this Mass that making the right choice—the choice to forgive—will always be a lot easier for us than it was for poor, old Jonah.