Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the LORD replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

–Jonah 3:1-4:4 (TNIV)

Here we see a vivid contrast between God’s goodness and grace compared with human folly. God calls Jonah to be a prophet to the hated goyim, foreigners and pagans, and Jonah reluctantly obeys, but only after he had a close encounter of an unpleasant kind with a fish. Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria which would ultimately conquer and deport the Northern Kingdom of Israel, repents. And what does Jonah do? He pouts! Instead of rejoicing that God had used him as an instrument of his salvation to the Gentiles, a function that was consistent with God’s original call to Abraham and the Jews, Jonah wants no part of it and is disgusted with God.

Now before we get too uppity and start criticizing Jonah and his people, we need to remember that we are just like him. How often do we Christians talk about mercy and forgiveness and then when given half a chance to extend both to others, we don’t want to do so?

Don’t believe me? Think about a time when someone you don’t (or didn’t) like asked for forgiveness from someone and received it, and you got disgusted by it. How about the sex offender who is really trying to turn the corner? How about the repentant adulterer? Do we really want them to receive God’s forgiveness and mercy or do we really want to see them get what they deserve? What about the braggart who is suddenly humbled and consequently sees the folly of his ways and repents? Are we willing to cut him some slack? Are we happy that he has repented? What about the athlete who falls from grace and then makes a serious effort to repent? Or the minister who succumbs to temptation and likewise tries to repent? What about this guy if he ever were to repent? Are we willing to forgive them and work to restore them or are we secretly delighted to see them get theirs?

Of course, when we are unhappy when others receive justice and mercy, we fail to remember that we are just as profoundly broken as those who got caught. Ours might not be the same sin. We might not be molesters, murderers or the like. That notwithstanding, none of us are perfect in God’s perfect eyes and all are in desperate need of his grace. But thankfully God’s symbol of justice is the cross of Christ for those who come to him in faith and true repentance.

Think about these things because they will give you keen insight into the state of your pride, especially if you are quick to ask for forgiveness and mercy when it is your turn to receive both. Are you quick to do what the Lord requires of you–to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)?

Let us always desire the happy life from the Lord God and always pray for it. But for this very reason we turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours, since that desire grows lukewarm, so to speak, from our involvement in other concerns and occupations. We remind ourselves through the words of prayer to focus our attention on the object of our desire; otherwise, the desire that began to grow lukewarm may grow chill altogether and may be totally extinguished unless it is repeatedly stirred into flame.

Since this is the case, it is not wrong or useless to pray even for a long time when there is the opportunity. I mean when it does not keep us from performing the other good and necessary actions we are obliged to do. But even in these actions, as I have said, we must always pray with that desire. To pray for a longer time is not the same as to pray by multiplying words, as some people suppose. Lengthy talk is one thing, a prayerful disposition which lasts a long time is another. For it is even written in reference to the Lord himself that he spent the night in prayer and that he prayed at great length. Was he not giving us an example by this? In time, he prays when it is appropriate; and in eternity, he hears our prayers with the Father.

Excessive talking should be kept out of prayer but that does not mean that one should not spend much time in prayer so long as a fervent attitude continues to accompany the prayer. To talk at length in prayer is to perform a necessary action with an excess of words. To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervor at the door of the one whom we beseech. This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech.

—Letter 130 to Proba 9

More practical advice from the good Bishop of Hippo.

Let us praise the Lord in voice, understanding, and good works. Humankind has aged as a consequence of sin; we are renewed through grace. Love praises the Lord; discord blasphemes the Lord.

–Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 149.1-2

God’s love is calling us to the joys of eternal happiness for the salvation of our souls. You have just listened to the reading from the Apostle in which he says: “Rejoice in the Lord always.” The joys of this world lead to eternal misery, but the joys that are according to the will of the Lord bring those who persevere in them to joys that are enduring and everlasting. The Apostle therefore says: “Again I say: rejoice.”

He urges us to find ever increasing joy in God and in keeping his commandments. The more we try in this world to give ourselves completely to God our Lord by obeying his commands, the greater will be our happiness in the life to come, and the greater the glory that will be ours in the presence of God.

“Let your moderation be known to all.” That is to say, your holiness of life must be evident, not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of other people. It must give an example of moderation and selfcontrol to all your contemporaries on earth and serve also as a memorial of goodness before God and other people.

“The Lord is near; have no anxiety.” The Lord is always near to all who call upon his help with sincerity, true faith, sure hope, and perfect love. He knows what you need, even before you ask him. He is always ready to come to the aid of all his faithful servants in every need. There is no reason for us to be in a state of great anxiety when evils threaten; we must remember that God is very near us as our protector.

–Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Commentary on Philippians 1.617-18

When considering a particular way of life, people sometimes have unrealistic expectations. This happens because people praise it omitting all the negative factors included in it. When any profession is praised without reservation, it may attract idealistic people but when they enter and find there people not living up to the ideals, they are so shocked that they reject the good along with the bad. Thus when someone exuberantly praises the Catholic Church by saying, “They all love each other and try their best to help others,” the listeners may not realize that those who are less than perfect have been passed over. Shocked by the bad Christians they find there they ignore even those who are doing their best to live up to the Christian ideal.

–Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 99.12

Good advice from Augustine and equally applicable to the political arena in this season of campaigning. Realistic expectations regarding the human condition is a good antidote to cynicism!

Inner silence is absence of any sort of inward stirring of thought or emotion, but it is complete alertness, openness to God. We must keep complete silence when we can, but never allow it to degenerate into simple contentment. To prevent this the great writers of Orthodoxy warn us never to abandon completely the normal forms of prayer, because even those who reached this contemplative silence found it necessary, whenever they were in danger of spiritual slackness, to reintroduce words of prayer until prayer had renewed silence.

The Greek Fathers set this silence, which they called hesychia, both as the starting-point and the final achievement of a life of prayer. Silence is the state in which all the powers of the soul and all the faculties of the body are completely at peace, quiet and recollected, perfectly alert yet free from any turmoil or agitation. A simile which we find in many writings of the Fathers is that of the waters of a pond. As long as there are ripples on the surface, nothing can be reflected properly, neither the trees nor the sky; when the surface is quite still, the sky is perfectly reflected, the trees on the bank and everything is there as distinct as in reality.

Another simile of the same sort used by the Fathers is that as long as the mud which is at the bottom of a pond has not settled, the water is not clear and one can see nothing through it. These two analogies apply to the state of the human heart. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). As long as the mud is in motion in the water there is no clear vision through it, and again as long as the surface is covered with ripples there can be no adequate reflection of what surrounds the pond.

As long as the soul is not still there can be no vision, but when stillness has brought us into the presence of God, then another sort of silence, much more absolute, intervenes: the silence of a soul that is not only still and recollected but which is overawed in an act of worship by God’s presence; a silence in which, as Julian of Norwich puts it, “Prayer oneth the soul to God.”

–Anthony Bloom, Living Prayer