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Wednesday of the
First Week of Lent • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II
✝️ Today's Mass Readings
First Reading: Jonah 3:1-10
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 18-19
Gospel: Luke 11:29-32
📖 The Gospel - Luke 11:29-32
The crowd is pressing
in on Jesus, demanding a sign, something spectacular to prove He is who He says
He is. And Jesus looks at them and says, you want a sign? Here's your sign.
Jonah. And something greater than Jonah is standing right here in front of you.
🙏 Gospel Reflection
Jonah is one of my
favorite stories in all of Scripture. What gets me about Jonah is how
completely reluctant he was. God called him to go to Nineveh and preach
repentance, and Jonah ran in the exact opposite direction. He wanted nothing to
do with the Ninevites. But God was not about to let him off the hook.
And so, He arranged circumstances, a storm, a
whale, three days in the dark, until Jonah finally said fine, I'll go. And when
Jonah preached, the entire city of Nineveh repented. The whole city! God saw
their sincerity and relented. That is one of the most extraordinary moments of
mass conversion in all of the Old Testament, through the most unwilling
preacher God ever sent.
Jesus points to the sign of Jonah as a sign
of His own death and resurrection, three days in the earth, just like Jonah's
three days in the belly of the whale. But He also points to the Ninevites as a
rebuke to the crowd around Him. They repented when they heard the word.
I often think of my own story: falling asleep
at the wheel and rolling my car on the Garden State Parkway in 1983. God used
that terrifying moment to get my attention, breaking through before I would
ever consider turning to Him. He was so patient, yet willing to use whatever it
took to reach a soul He loved. During the devastation, I felt huge hands
holding both my sister and me, protecting us through the wreck and placing us
gently down when the smoke cleared. When He finally gets your attention, will you turn your life over to Him?
💭 Reflection Question
Looking back at your
own life, what was your 'Jonah moment', the time God arranged circumstances to
get your attention, and how are you still responding to what He was trying to
tell you then?
📿 Today's Rosary - The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today's Focus
Mystery: The Carrying of the
Cross
Jonah ran from his
cross and ended up in the belly of a whale. Jesus embraced His cross and walked
it all the way to Calvary. Today, as you pray these beads, ask for the grace of
Jonah's final surrender - to stop running from whatever God is asking of you
and turn your feet toward Nineveh.
🌹 Our Lady of Fatima - Today's Connection
When Our Lady
appeared at Fatima, Portugal was a nation that had largely turned away from God,
much like Nineveh in Jonah's time. And just as God sent Jonah with an urgent
message of repentance, He sent Our Lady with an urgent message to that little
flock of shepherds: pray, repent, return. The people responded with repentance
and prayer. Our Lady's appearances were her own sign of Jonah, a call from
heaven that still echoes today, calling our world back to God.
🕊️ Closing Prayer
Lord, I stop running
today. Whatever You have been trying to show me, whatever Nineveh You have been
sending me toward, I turn my face toward it. Give me the courage of Jonah's
final surrender. I trust that Your word will not return empty. Amen.
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
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about My Spiritual Journey?
Read My Story: An Invitation
To Read My Story - My Testimony
