By: By Tim Irwin

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jan. 22

Jonah 3:1-5,10; Psalm 25:4-5,6-7,8-9; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

Procrastination plagues contemporary people. Organizations such as Procrastinators Anonymous and The Procrastinator’s Club offer support to the tardy. Go to a large city and you could attend a procrastinators’ self-help meeting, although one wonders if the participants actually get around to showing up. The readings for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time explore the many facets of procrastination.

In the first reading, Jonah preached to the Ninevites, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” The Ninevites repented at once. A fast was proclaimed and the entire population from the king down to the cattle covered themselves in sack cloth and sat in ashes. The quick response of the Ninevites annoyed Jonah. He never wanted to preach to them in the first place because he believed the Ninevites were not procrastinators. Jonah figured they would act quickly just as they did.

St. Paul calls for that kind of fast action in his First Letter to the Corinthians. “The time is short. For this world is passing away,” says Paul to the Christian community in Corinth that he had founded around the year 51. Five years later the ecstasy of the Gifts of the Spirit has been displaced by more carnal interests.

People of all religious and ethnic backgrounds lived in this raucous seaport offering the Christians a bounty of alarming options. One of the Corinthian Christians was involved in an incestuous union. Others got drunk at the agape meal. Some Christians ate the meat that had been sacrificed to pagan gods and some visited religious prostitutes. Factionalism abounded.

These diversions helped to prolong the Corinthians’ procrastination.
Paul warns his wayward converts that no matter how real the thrill, procrastination of this sort can have an eternally damning impact on their happiness.

REPENT QUICKLY
Those whose hearts long for genuine happiness hear Christ when He calls them: “As He was going along by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.

Going on a little farther, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who were also in the boat mending the nets. Immediately He called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went away to follow Him.” (Mark 1:16-20)

Today Christ invites us to both answer His call and echo His call. Who among us has not procrastinated with the television remote in hand when we might have spent some time in prayer? Perhaps we delay in receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, maybe even to the point that we don’t remember the last time we received absolution? Confession really is good for the soul.

In addition to answering His call, we can share His call. Do you have a friend or relative who has lapsed in their practice of the faith? Maybe they would like to return, but procrastination has their spiritual wheels spinning. You might be the traction they need to return to the church and a sacramental relationship with Christ.

The readings for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time remind us to share the call as Jonah eventually did, hopefully without his reluctance. Nothing else is really as important as the chance to be with the Lord as Peter, Andrew, James and John exemplify.

Let us not act like prurient procrastinators of Corinth, but like the Ninevites let us quickly repent — sack cloth and ashes optional.

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TIM IRWIN teaches at Peoria Notre Dame High School where he chairs the Theology Department. He is a member of St. Mark’s Parish in Peoria.