DO TESHUVAH
The unifying theme of this Third Sunday per annum is that of conversion. The first reading, taken from the Book of Jonah, tells of a triple conversion (teshuvah): of the prophet, first of all, who returns to God after the initial rejection; of the Ninevites, who return to the Lord in an exemplary way from the smallest to the largest (even the animals fast and do penance); of God himself, who, faced with the generous response of the Ninevites, abandons his anger, transforming it into mercy. Today’s Gospel also speaks of conversion (metanoia). The Kingdom has now arrived, thanks to Jesus, and it is a free gift. His entry, however, is reserved for those who freely welcome him. Converting therefore means turning to Christ and starting, behind him and with him, a journey of following him. But what do we mean by “conversion”? For the Jewish mens, “convert” and “return” are expressed in a single term: shub. Conversion is therefore not just penance. Certainly, it implies leaving the wrong path, but the final destination, we could say, is the encounter with God. For the evangelical mind, however, we find the Greek verb metanoéo (“to convert”), from which the noun metanoia (“conversion »). Metanoia indicates not only a change of direction in life but the assumption of a new scale of values, a real recast of our way of thinking and living. Sometimes it happens that you change direction but maintain the old mentality from before. Perhaps also for this reason, Saint Benedict, in his Rule, states that it is not enough that the monk has left everything by entering the monastery but that he takes the Gospel as a rule of life. As a pictorial icon for our theme we refer to the Jonah painted by Michelangelo in 1511-12, in ten days of work, and placed in the vault of the Sistine Chapel above the Christ of the Last Judgment. He is an imposing Jonah, struggling with an overly merciful God. The genius of Michelangelo sees it as a prophecy of the dead and risen Christ.
