Someone once told me, “Don’t worry man, if God has called you, He will make sure that you become what he wants, just like Jonah”. Having heard the story of Jonah preached over and over again right from early years of formation that argument sounded quite convincing. I don’t know whether you have had such thoughts but I spent a few years thinking that it is God’s job to make sure that I will be a priest. But I was wrong. The story of Jonah actually says the opposite. One will not reach where God wants him to be unless and until he consciously responds to God’s call.

Jonah had a call. Every call is associated with a mission. He was called to be a channel of grace to the people of Nineveh. Instead of responding to it, he went away from the presence of the Lord. Not that he was unwilling to be a prophet, we see in 2 Kings 14:25 that he had his ministry as a prophet, but it was to his own people, the Israelites. Now he was not willing to be a prophet as God wanted him to be.

As a person who is called and chosen, it is possible that I can be very willing and interested to be a priest but unwilling to form myself to be one as God wants me to be. What happens as a result? Jonah left the presence of the Lord and got into a ship. He was comfortable, and sound asleep but the storm came and the ship and everyone in it were about to be destroyed. He, someone who was called and chosen to be a channel of grace now became a channel of destruction to the group of people he was with. He was not aware of it because he was asleep.

But at times even after knowing that we have become negative influences in the life of someone we might continue in it. Jonah, however, took a courageous decision. He knew he had to be out of their circle if they had to be saved and told them to take him and throw him out into the turbulent sea. He had no clue that God would save him. But the moment he decided to move out of his comfort zone, God was there to save him. Whenever a consecrated person breaks with anything or anyone that prevents that person from becoming what God wants him or to be, God’s hands will be there to hold that person up and to fill the emptiness created by such a decision.

Jonah went through a transformation in the belly of the fish, he began to pray. The last verse that we heard was, “Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.” But there is something just before this which not given in the lectionary. The verse before it says, “with a voice of thanksgiving, will I sacrifice to you: what I have vowed I will pay”. And it continues… “then the Lord spoke to the fish….”

Before the lord brought him to the shore he had decided to fulfil the vows that he had made to the Lord. And to offer it as a thanksgiving sacrifice. Eccl 5:4,5 says “When you make your vow to God, do not delay fulfilling it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Fulfil what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfil it.” When we decide to fulfil the vows, we have made to the Lord and do it joyfully, the lord will make us a channel of grace. The very next verse we see, “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, get up and go to Nineveh.” He was restored to his mission.

We are all called to be channels of grace. For that, it is not enough to be just “good”. Such goodness is not enough in the sight of God. We need to be exactly what God wants us to be, going one step further in our commitment and be channels of grace. Our unwillingness for that might cause harm and destruction to those with whom we associate.

May our blessed mother intercede for us that we may become channels of God’s grace like her.