Day 1 (Monday)
Jonah 3:1-10; 4:1-11 (Repentance of Nineveh, Jonah is Angry and is Corrected)
Last time, we saw Jonah called to preach to Nineveh, but instead run away, going to Joppa and taking ship in the opposite direction. We saw the Lord bring a storm upon his ship, and Jonah admit to his shipmates that he was the cause of the storm, directing them to throw him into the sea to save themselves. They did so, and God sent a great fish to swallow Jonah, and from the depths of the belly of the fish, Jonah cried out in repentance, asking for the Lord’s deliverance, and after three days, God caused the fish to spew Jonah out onto dry land. This time, we will see Jonah obey God and go to Nineveh, and what will result from that.
Conversion of Nineveh
3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.
4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
Jonah’s Anger
4 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3 And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. 6 The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush.
7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah Is Reproved
9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” 10 Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should note that in the story of Jonah, we see three elements of the Gospel prefigured and prophesied. First, in Jonah we see not just a sign of resurrection, but also an instance of one bound in what might as well be death crying out to God for help, and God coming and delivering him from that bondage, and thus, Jonah is not just a sign of the Lord’s Resurrection, but also a sign of all those who were bound in Hades that were delivered by the Lord in His Resurrection. So those are the first two elements; the third is Jonah’s discontent about the mercy granted to the people of Nineveh. There is something similar in his reaction and that of the people of God at the time of St. Paul, as they see Gentiles entering the Church without submitting to the full requirements of the Torah, without being humiliated and suffering in the same way that their nations had caused the Hebrews to suffer. But in both cases, the Lord will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and it is our part, all of our part, simply to rejoice in the mercy that we have received from God.)
2) What do we learn about God in this reading?
3) What do we learn about human beings in this reading?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 2 (Wednesday)
St. Cyril of Jerusalem – Catechetical Homily 14:19-21
Last time we read chapters 15-18 of St. Cyril’s 14th Catechetical Homily, on the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Lord’s Sitting at the Right Hand of the Father. We saw St. Cyril addressing the objections and criticisms of those who deny the Resurrection of the Lord, and specifically those of the Jews, and using the story of Jonah, which was the Lord’s own sign offered to those of His people who demanded a sign even before His Passion, as a means of doing so. This time, we will see him continue his reflection on the Lord’s descent into death, and proclaim the Lord’s glorious Resurrection.
Chapter 19
Death was panic-stricken on seeing a new visitant descending into the nether world, One not subject to the bonds of the place. Why, O you porters of hell, were you terrified on seeing Him? What unaccustomed fear seized upon you? Death fled away and his flight convicted him of cowardice. The holy prophets ran forward, and Moses the Lawgiver, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; David also and Samuel; Isaia and John the Baptist, who bore witness to Him when he said: “Art thou he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
All the Just, whom death had swallowed up, were ransomed; for it was fitting that the King who had been heralded should be the Redeemer of His noble heralds. Then each of the Just said: “ ‘O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?’86 For the Conqueror has ransomed us.”
Chapter 20
Jona fulfilled a type of our Savior when he prayed from the belly of the fish and said: “I cried for help from the midst of the nether world.” He was in fact in the fish, yet he says that he is in the nether world. In a later verse he manifestly prophesies in the person of Christ: “My head went down into the chasms of the mountains.”88 Yet he was still in the belly of the fish. What mountains encompass you? But I know, he says, that I am a type of Him who is to be laid in the sepulchre hewn out of the rock. While he was in the sea Jona says: “I went down into the earth”; for he typified Christ, who went down into the heart of the earth.
Foreseeing also the deceit of the Jews, who persuaded the soldiers to lie by saying to them, “Say,” that they “stole him away,”90 Jona says: “They that observe lying vanities have forsaken their own mercy.” For He who showed them mercy came, was crucified and rose again, when He had shed His precious blood for the Jews and the Gentiles. But they say: “Say,” that they “stole him away,” “observing lying vanities.” Concerning His Resurrection Isaia says: “He who brought from the earth the great shepherd of the sheep.”92 He has added the word ‘great,’ lest He be esteemed merely equal in honor with the shepherds before Him.
Chapter 21
Therefore, since we have the prophecies, let our faith be firm. Let them fall, who fall from disbelief, for they will it so; but you have taken your stand upon the rock of faith in the Resurrection. Even to this day the Manichaeans say that the Resurrection of the Savior was imaginary and not real, paying no heed to Paul, who writes: “Who was born according to the flesh of the offspring of David’; and afterwards: “by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Again his words are directed against them when he says: “Do not say in thy heart: Who shall ascend into heaven? or, Who shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring up Christ from the dead.”94 In like manner, by way of confirmation he has written elsewhere: “Remember that Jesus Christ rose from the dead”; and again: “and if Christ has not risen, vain then is our preaching, vain too is your faith. Yes, and we are found false witnesses as to God, in that we have borne witness against God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise.”
96 Subsequently he says: “But as it is, Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” “And he appeared to Cephas; and after that to the twelve”98 (for if you disbelieve one witness, you have twelve witnesses); “then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once” (if they disbelieve the twelve, let them heed the five hundred); “after that, he was seen by James,”100 His own brother, and first bishop of this diocese.
Since so famous a bishop was privileged to see the risen Christ, as his disciple, do not disbelieve. But you may say that His brother is a biased witness; thereafter “he was seen by me,” Paul, His enemy; can testimony be doubted when it is proclaimed by an enemy? “I formerly was a persecutor,”102 but now preach the glad tidings of the Resurrection.
Leo McCauley, “Foreword to Catecheses 13–18,” in The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, ed. Bernard M. Peebles, trans. Leo P. McCauley and Anthony A. Stephenson, vol. 64, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1970), 41–46.
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should note that St. Cyril is doing many things at once. He is connecting the prophecy of Jonah to the death and resurrection of the Lord. He is affirming the Church’s ancient belief that the righteous from the Old Testament were waiting for the Lord in Hades and rejoiced to see Him come to shatter the ancient gates and bars and take dominion even over death itself. He is confessing that the Lord’s Resurrection is confirmed by many witnesses, and thus, in all ways, he is preaching the essential truth of the Lord’s Resurrection as the cornerstone of our Faith and our Salvation and our Life. Therefore, let us say together with Him (but not quite yet): Christ is Risen!)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 3 (Friday)
Acts 18:1-17 (Paul in Corinth)
Last time, we saw St. Paul arrive in Athens, and being deeply troubled by the idolatry that he saw everywhere in the city, he began to preach not just in the local synagogue, but even in the street, speaking the Gospel to anyone that would listen. Eventually some of the philosophers were intrigued, and gave him a space on the Areopagus to speak more fully, and there he proclaimed the “Unknown God” to them, and spoke of the Resurrection. Most of those listening dismissed him at that point, but some of them, notably Dionysios the Areopagite, whose name is very important in later times within the Church. This week, we will see where St. Paul goes next.
Paul in Corinth
18 After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2 There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. 4 Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.
5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. 6 When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” 7 Then he left the synagogue and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue.
8 Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized. 9 One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; 10 for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.” 11 He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
12 But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. 13 They said, “This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.” 14 Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews; 15 but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.” 16 And he dismissed them from the tribunal. 17 Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things.
Reading 33 – 431 words
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should point out that what happens in this chapter is a matter of some importance; for the first time since his time in Antioch, St. Paul is staying for a prolonged period of time in one of the cities where he has preached the Gospel. That it is Corinth, a city substantially given over to wickedness (and renowned for this, in fact) is striking; Paul is not looking for easy labors, but is remaining in the place where there is a profound ongoing need for oversight and pastoral care. In this place, too, we see him explicitly tell the people in the synagogue that he is innocent of their rejection, and will now go to speak the Word to the Gentiles. Finally, the mention of Aquila and Priscilla as specifically Jews who had lived in Rome but had been expelled by Claudius is important; it reflects an event in history that is attested elsewhere, and which also provides the background for St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. The point being that the Jews were expelled from Rome, but not necessarily the Gentile Faithful, and thus, when eventually the Jews (including Jews who followed Christ) were allowed to return to Rome, there was a strong temptation to proceed with two separate congregations. The Epistle to the Romans can be read as an urgent plea by St. Paul that they should continue together as one body.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?