October 25: Jonah, before the whale

One more pass at Pope Francis’ candid talk about the sin of spiritual worldliness.

“Those who have fallen into this worldliness look on from above and afar, they reject the prophecy of their brothers and sisters, they discredit those who raise questions, they constantly point out the mistakes of others and they are obsessed by appearances.”

These are scalding words; we can almost see the steam float off the page.

But Pope Francis has spoken of this sin, in these terms, for many years. In 2007, for instance, when he was still Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he used the prophet Jonah to demonstrate the one thing which these scalding words have in common: the isolated conscience.

“[Jonah] wanted to do things his way, he wanted to steer it all. His stubbornness shut him in his own structures of evaluation, in his pre-ordained methods, in his righteous opinions. He had fenced his soul off with the barbed wire of those certainties that instead of giving freedom with God and opening horizons of greater service to others had finished by deafening his heart. How the isolated conscience hardens the heart! Jonah no longer knew that God leads His people with the heart of a Father.”

And that was Jonah before he was “shut in” and “fenced off” inside the belly of the whale!