First Reading
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
The word of the Lord came to Jonah, saying: “Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you.” So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, ” when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.
Second Reading
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing, those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away.
Gospel Cycle Cycle B
Mark 1:14-20
After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then they left their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.
Today’s Gospel has Jesus setting out and preaching after the death of Saint John the Baptist. He is preaching John’s message at this time: Repent and believe in the Good News. The Kingdom of God is at hand.
For Jesus the Kingdom of God is always at hand, just as it is in our lives. We have a choice to live in the Kingdom or to ignore the Kingdom. Perhaps we can be indifferent to the Kingdom, but in time that means that we ignore the Kingdom.
Everything that Jesus does is important to help us understand Him. He is surely the One who comes in the name of the Lord. He preaches repentance but later He also preaches love. These two preachings are not exclusive of one another. Real love requires us to repent all within us that is not of love.
In contrast to the preaching of Jesus, the first reading today gives us Jonah, who did not want the people of Nineveh to repent. In the short passage we are given today, we are given only the preaching of Jonah and the response of the Ninevites. They do repent and God changes his attitude towards them. We know that God does not change and that these descriptions are simply telling us that the Ninevites turns to God and were faithful after the preaching of Jonah. God always loves us and in some way our conversion brings glory to the Lord and we describe that as God being happy with us.
The second reading, from the First Letter to the Corinthians today, reminds us that this present world is passing away. We can look at this reading and tell ourselves that the world is still here. Or we can realize that our world is always changing and that the more we live in Christ, the more this world passes away because we are moving from dark to light, from despair to hope, from resistance to God towards the love of God.
For our Ordinary Time Spirituality we can look at all three readings as inviting us to change, to repent, to live in a new way. The choice is ours each day in our ordinary lives. We can respond to the Lord and allow Him to change us or we can resist the Lord. Today again the choice is ours.