Led to the Right Path by Adversity

In today's first reading, Jonah 1: 1-2: 2, 11, Jonah boards a ship going in the opposite direction from Nineveh. God's request of Jonah was that he [s]et out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; their wickedness has come up before me." Jonah runs away from God, as does a little child whose parents are asking of him/her what the little one does not was to do. Just as a parent runs after the fleeing child, so, too, does God follow Jonah. He gets Jonah's attention when a violent storm breaks out and the ship on which he is traveling is in great danger of sinking!  Frightened, the crew, once they believe that Jonah is the problem, throw Jonah overboard. The turbulence ceases. And Jonah is swallowed up by a huge fish and coughed up on the shores of Nineveh, so the story goes--a theological treatise teaching us that God is in charge and that, when we try to escape God's ways and fail to carry out God's will for us, we, too, will experience turbulence--a troubled conscience that deprives us of sleep at night and denies us the peace we crave. We, too, become swallowed up by darkness!

Our only chance of becoming free is that God ultimately rescues us from our waywardness. With Jonah, Jonah 2: 3-5, 8, we pray:

Out of my distress I called upon the Lord,
and he answered me; 
From the midst of the nether world I cried for help,
and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea,
and the flood  enveloped me;
All your breakers and your billows
passed me over.

Then I said, "I am banished from our sight!
yet would I again look upon your holy temple."

When my soul fainted within me,
 I remembered the Lord;
My prayer reached you
in your holy temple.

The Anchor of One's Vocation

Anchoring One’s Vocation in the Lord

In the recent Scriptures readings for the day’s liturgy we have been presented with the story of Tobiah’s marriage to Sarah, daughter of Raguel (Tobit 6: 10-11; 7: 1abcde, 9-17; 8: 4-9a).  The night of the marriage, before having intercourse, Tobiah and Sarah take time to pray.  Tobiah says to Sarah, “My love, get up. Let us pray and beg our Lord to have mercy on us and grant us deliverance.” The couple prayed and begged the Lord for deliverance that night from the evil that had befallen Sarah in seven previous marriages when each of her husbands died before having relations with her. They bless the Lord, praise His name, call upon the heavens and all of creation to praise God and then beg to be set free of any snares that lie in wait for them.

No matter to which vocation we are called, it is important that we anchor our life in a relationship with the Lord. Troubled waters, storms, turbulence are part of life. Any of those can throw us for a loop, capsize our “boats,” lead to disastrous ends. God and God alone is our
Savior in any walk of life.  Will I, like Tobiah and Sarah, put God first on the night of our “marriage,” whether that be to a life-long partner or to living a vowed life of a woman/man consecrated to the Lord or as a priest or a single person?

In what way are you, right now, taking steps to grow your relationship with the Lord?