Back in the ’40s or ’50s, the very famous and popular Trappist writer, Thomas Merton, wrote a book which he entitled “The Sign of Jonah.” It was a journal of his life in the monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, and the title was based on the words of Jesus which we read in the gospel of today’s Mass. Our Lord says that the people seeking a sign of his authenticity as messiah and redeemer will be given no sign except the sign of Jonah.

And what was that sign? It was a two-fold indication. First, the prophet Jonah was thrown overboard by the sailors on the ship in which he was sailing to get away from God’s commandment. He was swallowed by a large fish and lived in the fish’s insides for three days before being vomited up onto the beach at a point closest to the city of Nineveh, to which God wanted him to preach repentance for sin. Our Lord uses this story as a prefiguration of his burial in the tomb and then his resurrection from the dead. The second part of the “sign of Jonah” is that when he finally DID go to Nineveh and preach repentance to those pagans, they paid attention to him and did the penance that he was asking for. So Christ is the messiah who spent three days in the tomb as Jonah had spent three days in a large fish, and then goes to a city that did not know the true God, preached repentance to them, and brought them to a recognition of their sinfulness and their need to be converted to virtue and goodness.

We don’t have to take the story of Jonah literally, but we certainly DO have to pay attention to Jesus’s words telling us that he is indeed the savior who was prefigured by Jonah in the story of the large fish and then the conversion of Nineveh. Our Divine Lord spent the period from about 4 p.m. on Good Friday until slightly before dawn on the following Sunday in the tomb. Then he returned to life—a new life that he meant to share with us. And he shares his risen life with us by saying to us: Be careful! You are sinners, in large ways or small. Turn from your sins, be converted, and live in union with Me in this world so as to be united with Me forever. Death will swallow us as the big fish swallowed Jonah. But death with also give us back to life as the fish coughed up Jonah on the beach, and the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord will make it possible for us to turn from our sins, live in virtue, and enjoy life with Jesus, His Father, and His Holy Spirit forever—not to mention all the saints and angels in our Father’s many mansions. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.