Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Jon 3:1-5 & 10; 1 Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1:14-20 (Year B) The story of Jonah and the whale is colourful and lingers long in the memory. Even if many would feel that it has little practical application today, we would be wrong to dismiss it. The point it wishes to make applies as much today, perhaps more so, than at the time it was written. Religious minorities tend to retreat into themselves when faced with a hostile world. Such minorities inevitably restrict God’s promised salvation to themselves alone, thereby denying to others the opportunity to respond to God’s universal love. The story of Jonah turns this presumption on its head. Jonah, a faithful Jew, was reluctant to proclaim repentance and salvation to the pagan people of Nineveh. Hence the escapade with the whale that deposited a reluctant Jonah on foreign shores. We who find enduring repentance so difficult can learn much from the response of Nineveh: “And the people of Nineveh believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least.” The meaning of the story is inescapable: do we reach beyond the comfortable in our willingness to forgive, and do we respond to such forgiveness as did the people of Nineveh? St Paul never tired of insisting that now, in this present moment, is the time to repent and commit ourselves to the Lord. Thus he speaks of the time growing short, of not becoming so engrossed in present concerns that we, like Jonah, fail to recognise the immediacy of God’s call. Mark’s account of the call of the first Apostle emphasises the immediacy of their response: “And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him.” The call of the Apostles was pivotal in the Father’s intention to call a people to himself. We are all called in different ways, some indeed as apostles, but most in less dramatic ways. All without exception are called to communion with a generous Father. It is only in the next act of kindness, the next smile of welcome and forgiveness, that we can respond. We can, if we choose, acknowledge in our next thought and action that the Kingdom of God is indeed close at hand. Let us not be intimidated by the urgency of Christ’s call. It is the urgency of love.