4 th Sunday after Epiphany Resumed (Jonas as type)

Transcription

1 4 th Sunday after Epiphany Resumed (Jonas as type) a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but He was asleep 1. Last Sunday, on the great and timely feast of Christ the King, we noted how His Divine Majesty gives signs and prefigurements down through time to be fulfilled. He is the Master of all history. Using the insight of Bd. John Henry Newman, the Lord God makes every event in the world... a type of those that follow, history proceeding forward as a circle ever enlarging... (The Antichrist, Miceli, p. 106). Some types (or historical connections) are more encompassing than others. One of the grander types is that of the minor Prophet Jonas. In today s Gospel, His Majesty is sleeping in an endangered boat on the stormy sea. This is only one example of fulfillment of Jonas as a type. God is saying something here these events are connected history is connected. Only He can do this! Let s look into this a little (I stress a little because there is enough material here for an entire conference or two.) 2. As it turns out, the book of Jonas acts as a type of salvation history. It is a thumbnail sketch with Jonas playing all the essential parts. The book begins: Now the Word of God came to Jonas saying: Arise, and go to Ninive the great city, and preach in it. As everyone knows, Jonas turned away from this obedience, turned his back on fulfilling his duty, and ran for it. Here Jonas typifies Adam fleeing from God at the very beginning. 3. Soon, however, a huge storm arises. This storm represents the entire Old Testament: the world undergoes a great turmoil caused by the sin of Adam. Nothing seems to work in calming the stormy waters of Original Sin. Jonas then gets to typify or prefigure the coming of His Majesty, the Redeemer the New Adam. Mankind, represented by the men aboard the boat, wants a solution and Jonas presents the solution. He is discovered. He admits who he is, a Jew and they cast him into the sea. Salvation is from the Jews. To be a type of the Christ, Jonas has to be thrown overboard. He cannot just jump overboard it must be a Passion He must be cast overboard killed by others. He must be encompassed by the revolution of sin and death to undo it all. Thus, Our Blessed Lord in His Agony and Passion became sin and dies on the cross, descending down into the belly of the whale the earth for three days and three nights to undo sin and death.

2 4. Let us note well that as soon as Jonas is cast overboard a great calm comes. The Solution is found in the type of Christ Jonas! Conversions are immediate. The pagans put aside their false gods and worship the only true God, make vows (read here vows of baptism) and offer sacrifice (read here the Holy Mass). Is this not what happened at the foot of the Cross? 5. Coming back up from the whale and the waters, Jonas prefigures the Resurrection. Then the Word of the Lord comes to Jonas a second time. This is the New Testament. Jonas now becomes the Apostles going out into Ninive that is, the whole world to fulfill his duties. Even within the first day of preaching, that is the first age of the Church, conversions happen rapidly that even the state comes to serve the Church, removing all blockages that may hinder God s action among men. Christendom is prefigured. 6. Yet, now, in the final chapter, Jonas switches gears once again to become the unconverted nationalistic Jews the very ones that rejected His Divine Majesty when He came and they still do to this very day. This group, this race is upset that the Incarnate Word has gone over to the Gentiles. They are as it were sitting in Jerusalem in the East looking over at Rome just as Jonas sat on the Eastern side of Ninive looking upon the converted Ninivites with disdain. This is a sketch of all history! Amazing how well it fits! Truly, every event in the world... a type of those that follow, history proceeding forward as a circle ever enlarging So, the first chapter typifies the entire Old Testament with Jonas becoming the Christ at the end. The second chapter the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Christ. The third chapter Christ s Mystical Body the Catholic and Apostolic Church carrying out the Divine Mandate. The fourth chapter is a type of the unconverted Jewish nation that will remain until the end before finally converting. 8. I hope you agree types are amazing things. What is more many of them often display a fractal pattern, where the whole is repeated on smaller or intermediate levels. The whole is captured or repeated in its parts. Examples are not wanting in creation Frost crystals occurring naturally on cold glass form fractal patterns. A chambered nautilus shell is another example of a fractal found in nature.

3 9. The Book of Jonas also displays this fractal pattern. In other words, just as it applies to salvation history as a whole we will find it repeating itself or being fulfilled at various times down through history. Today s Gospel account of the boat in the storm appears in Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke. What happens before and after each of them is significant in fulfilling the pattern. In Matthew we hear about certain people saying they want to follow His Divine Majesty after hearing Him, yet they do not do so. In Luke s Gospel just before this boat scene, His Majesty says: My mother and my brethren are they who hear the word of God and do it. And in St. Mark s Gospel, the boat scene is preceded by the parables about the Kingdom of God as being like a sower and his seed or like a mustard seed turning into a big tree. One can see that the boat is also a type of this very Kingdom of God in which one must obey the Word of God when it heard and fulfill it come what may in order for the seed to grow. What is even more telling is how once the sleeping New Jonas is awakened, and the seas calmed, in all three Gospel accounts, the boat arrives at the shore of Gerasens where demoniacs and a nation in need of conversion await them. It is Ninive all over again. The storm was a test to see if they would persevere in following His Majesty to die to self and obey God s command to convert world. 10. I propose to you today that right now, at this momentous time in history, this very same Jonas Fractal Pattern or type is being played out in the Church as a whole and often in us as Her individual members. Let me explain: The Word came to the Apostles the first time when Christ ascended into heaven. He said, And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt 28:18-19). Go to Ninive the great city and preach in it. 11. Yet, we can argue, starting with Pope John XXIII, or at least Pope Paul VI, and successive pontiffs, the leadership of Holy Mother Church, like Jonas of old, ran away from this mandate. A storm was already in the making at the time with the world having passed through successive revolutions and world wars. And so, these leaders sought new ways to calm the waters, casting many of the Church s treasures overboard in an effort to lighten the load and bring the ship to a harbor of promised peace

4 and world wide unity AS a result, many things have been, as it were jettisoned among them: the Latin language, the ancient rituals, the Papal Tiara, Scholastic Philosophy and Theology, abstaining and fasting on Fridays, clerical and religious garb, modesty, sacred music, to name a few. As we know well, the storm only got worse. They called meetings of all the worlds religions at Assisi in order to pray to their gods for the storm to end. The storm only got worse. Priestly celibacy is being proposed as something to be cast overboard as well as the papacy itself, at leasto0 as it has been known heretofore. Yet, the pattern is clear the storm will only get worse until at some point the world is going to come for Jonas himself seeing him as the problem who in our time is the Pope. And when they cast him overboard, a calm will mysterious come as the vision part of the 3 rd Secret of Fatima shows us. In that vision we are told of a time when the pope will be reduced to a Bishop dressed in white. He is the Pope in the eyes of the world, dressed for the part, but he will not act like the Popes of old. He will seem to be asleep as to the incredible danger of the storm the ship is in. How is this possible? He will not carry out his duties of his state in life one of which is to convert the world to make disciples of all nations. 12. Yet, later in the same vision another Pope appears, and this one fulfills his duty, climbing a mountain with many followers of all kinds. This Pope is then martyred. He is cast overboard. This act brings about the conversion of souls as indicated in the vision. This Pope is Jonas putting an end to the storm. This death of some future Jonas like Pope has been seen and predicted not only at Fatima but by many others including Pope St. Pius X. It will happen and it will be the sign that the next part of the type of Jonas is just around the corner an age of calm and peace the triumph of Mary s Immaculate Heart with Many Many conversions to follow (N.B., the three days of Jonas in the whale represents the three days of darkness to precede the age of Mary). Yet, just like Jonas of old in the last chapter, the hard hearted Jews will not convert until the very end of time. The revolution will continue and the storm will return. 13. This type this amazing fractal pattern, is true for us as well. God has sent His Word to us and we resist. We try to find some way out. We flee. Alas! The old Adam is still alive in us! Why will the storm, that is the trouble and trials and tribulations of our lives not abate? Why will they

5 not go away no matter what we try? Because we have not conquered ourselves. We have not come to realize we indeed are the problem. Job comes to mind. When the storm came to him with incredible ferocity he blamed no one not the Sabeans, not the Caldeans, not even the devil. Instead he weathered it and conversions took place. He who conquers himself, conquers the world. St. Elias realized he was the problem after his incredible success on Mt. Carmel saying, Take my life, I am no better than my fathers. With that he became great so great that he conquered the world and even death it seems as he was taken up in a fiery chariot to await the last days to die. When the storm hits us, we usually have a whole litany of reasons why we run away from fulfilling the word of God hurt feelings, unforgiveness, resentments, attachment to our own ideas of how things should be done or how we ought to be treated. So very common we cast out all the wrong things like patience, long suffering, prayer and devotion, kindness, affability, amiability and the storms of our life will only increase until we wake up and see, we are the problem and cast out our pride, self-love, anger and resentments. undo emotional reactions. 14. Fydor Dostoevsky explains these realities very well through the elder: Fr. Zosima in his magnum opus the Brothers Karamazov. I paraphrase a little to make it more fitting to us: Love one another Love God's people. Because we have come here are we really any holier than those that are outside? On the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us should confess to himself that he is worse than others, worse than all men on earth... And the longer we live in this environment, so near to this traditional altar and all that flows from it, the more keenly we ought to recognize that. Else we would have had no reason to come here. When we realize that we are not only worse than others, but that we are responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion, our refuge, is attained. [We awaken from our stupor in sleeping in the storm, seeking self-preservation]. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of fallen man, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the true believer. It makes us to become another

6 Jonas and one capable of calming the waters of the worst storms. For we are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of us will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with our tears... or even our life s blood. 15. Let us, then, dearly beloved always respond to the graces of God, the Word of God and seek always to fulfill the duties of our state in life, ever renewing our vows ever ready to sacrifice all for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.