WEDNESDAY IN THE FIRST WEEK IN LENT

One thing my mother asked my sister and me to do each year as part of our Lenten practices while growing up was to listen and follow her directions the first time she asked us to do something.  While this may sound like an easy task, I still found myself periodically getting distracted and forgetting to clean my room, write my grandmother an thank-you card, or any other little thing she might have asked me.  In today's reading, we see how Jonah, too, needed to be asked twice by God to carry out his mission in the city of Nineveh, a mission to remind the people there to repent and turn back to God.

While the reminder that the Ninevites received from God was of a somewhat less threatening nature then my mom's, the Gospel reveals to us that the most important and ultimately best reminder that God give us is Jesus.  Lent is a time when we can strive to be especially conscious of the examples of Jesus' love that we encounter in our everday lives, such as the family visiting their aunt in the nursing home, the high school students volunteering at the soup kitchen, or the person who sits down to listen to a friend going through a difficult time.

During Lent, we can challenge ourselves to internalize the love that Jesus showed to others so that we can better initiate similar acts of love.  In this way, we, like Jesus, can serve as reminder to the world that we are called to live in love and solidarity with each other.