CALENDARIUM ROMANUM FORMA ORDINARIA

The whole history of Jonah shows him to us as the perfect prefiguration of our Savior (…) Jonah went down to Joppa to board a ship for Tarsis (…); Our Lord came down from heaven to earth, divinity came down to humanity, majestic power to our lowliness (…), to board the ship of his Church (…) It was Jonah himself who made the decision to have himself thrown into the sea: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea”; thus he announced the Lord’s freely willed Passion. When the salvation of a great many depends on the death of one then that death is in the hands of that man who can freely withhold or, alternatively, hasten it to forestall the danger. The whole mystery of the Lord is prefigured here. Death is no necessity for him; it results from his free choice. Hear him: «I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it up again: no one takes it from me» (Jn 10:18) (…) See the great fish, a horrible and cruel image of hell. As it devours the prophet it feels the strength of the Creator (…) and fearfully offers the resting place of its belly to this traveller from on high (…) And after three days (…) it returns him to the light to give him to the pagans (…) Such is the sign, the only sign, Christ consented to give the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 12:39) so as to make them understand that the glory they themselves hoped for from Christ would also be turned towards the gentiles: the Ninevites are the symbol of the nations who believed in him (…) O my brethren, what happiness this is for us ! What was foretold and promised in symbol we venerate, see and possess face to face in all truth.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

Reflect, my brethren, and regard the example of our Lord, who has made travelers of us and commanded us to come to the heavenly city by running along the road of charity (…) Though he is seated in heaven, out of compassion for its striving members (since he is the head of both members and body throughout the world (Col 2:19)), he has said: “What you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me” (…) When he transformed Paul the persecutor into Paul the preacher he said to him from heaven on high: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4) (…) Saul was persecuting christians: was he persecuting Christ who was seated in heaven? But Christ was himself within the christians, suffering with all his members, that in him this saying might be true: “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it” (1 Cor 12:26) (…) Let us then bear each others’ burdens (Gal 6:2); where the head has gone before, the members are destined to follow (…) If our Lord and Savior, who is without sin, condescends to love us sinners with so great a love that he declares he is suffering what we are suffering, how is that we, who are not without sin and who can redeem our sins through charity, how is that we do not love each other with a love so perfect that we feel for all the evil endured by one amongst us with a feeling of charity? (…) A hand or other member cut off from the body no longer feels anything. Such is the christian who does not suffer from the misfortune, distress, or even the death of the other person.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team