Sunday, January 22, 2006
THIS MORNING'S GEOGRAPHY LESSON AT MASS
I thought it was one of the better homilies. Father talked about Ninevah having been located at the place that today we call Mosul, in Iraq. An Assyrian city, in Biblical times it was considered to be a bloody city, and a dangerous place for an Israelite. Thus when Jonah was called to preach to Ninevah, he rejected the call and went in the opposite direction, which meant he needed to cross a body of water. While he was on the boat a storm came up. The crew got together and decided the reason the storm continued unabated was this stranger in their midst named Johah. They tossed him overboard and then the storm subsided. That's how he ended up in the belly of a whale that took him back to the same shore where he had embarked. There the Lord called him again, and you heard the rest of the story at Mass this morning.
The church got really quiet while Father was telling this story. I don't believe I ever remember hearing a homily that described the setting of the Biblical story quite so clearly as this morning's homily did. I wish we could have more like this one. Very interesting!
