Today is Shrove Tuesday - our last day to put aside the things of this world, turn to God, and seek His pardon before the penitential season of Lent. As we look forward to Ash Wednesday, we reflect on the words of Our Lord that "a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and no sign shall be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet." Jonas fled from the face of God, fearful of his prefigurement of the Cross. To Nineve, the wicked city, he preached penance, and penance they did, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and God showed them His Mercy for their obedience.
Each year on this day we are called to reflect on whether we are the outwardly wicked city of Nineve, which, seeing their sins, did penance and were spared or if we are of the inwardly wicked city of Jerusalem, which, seeing their Messias, rejected him, and abode in God's righteous wrath.
Let us be as the Ninevites, who saw their sins, and put on sackcloth and ashes, and became an example to us for our reclamation.
