The Book Of Jonah And President Biden

3 years ago

By FR. JOHN LANKEIT

(Editor’s Note: Fr. John Lankeit, who delivered the homily below on January 24, 2021, the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, is the rector of Saints Simon and Jude Cathedral of the Diocese of Phoenix. In this homily, Fr. Lankeit urges Catholics to pray for the conversion of President Joe Biden, so that he will renounce abortion and other anti-life, anti-religious beliefs and practices.

(The readings for that Sunday were: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Cor. 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20.)

+ + The greatest challenge for faithful, traditional, orthodox Catholics in 2021 is not political…despite the oppressive presence of politics in every aspect of our daily lives.

No, the greatest challenge for faithful, traditional, orthodox Catholics in 2021 is to desire the deep, profound conversion and salvation of President Joe Biden….

Tragically, there are too many Catholic politicians for whom abortion is the preeminent “sacrament” of their “political religion,” and we should pray for all of them too, of course, since they are our brothers and sisters in Christ by virtue of our common Baptism.

But our focus needs to be on our President, because he is in the strongest position to further malform the already-poorly formed Catholics in the American Church today by his evil example.

Unfortunately, the President has more influence on, and more creditability with, a large percentage of the American Catholic population than even the U.S. bishops, because our President is more committed to his anti-life, anti-marriage, anti-religious freedom agenda, than many of our bishops are to the clear, consistent preaching of the Gospel.

Just as they failed to lead in 1968, when then Pope St. Paul VI stood firm and courageously in defense of the Church’s prohibition of artificial contraception, the bishops of the United States today have — with a few heroic exceptions — forfeited most all of their credibility among the faithful for failing to speak clearly — prior to the election — about the mortal danger of voting for anti-life, anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-religious freedom politicians — danger not only to the souls of the politicians themselves, but danger to the Catholic population at large, a high percentage of whom already take their cues about what it means to be Catholics more from cable news than they do from the Good News — the Gospel.

Our President’s soul teeters on the edge of Hell because of his arrogant, aggressive attacks on innocent human life, on the very nature of marriage and sexuality, and on the freedom to worship God without hostility from the government.

If someone came to Confession to me in the past three days, they very likely received this penance: To pray for — and to sincerely desire — the profound conversion and the salvation of President Joe Biden’s soul.

Personally, I’ve been more compelled to pray for the salvation of this President — in just the first five days of his presidency — than for any other active President in my lifetime, precisely because of our shared Baptism. I do not like Joe Biden. But I am called to love Joe Biden enough to pray for his good. And so are you!

Because if we don’t sincerely desire President Biden’s salvation, then we are no better than Jonah, who — in the first chapter of the Book of Jonah — responded to God’s command to preach to the pagans of Nineveh by cutting and running from God.

Our First Reading today — taken out of this context — gives the false impression that Jonah was immediately obedient to God, faithful to his duty, and happy to contribute to the conversion of the evil Ninevite pagans.

But that was not the case at all. Today’s First Reading is taken from the third chapter of the Book of Jonah. But in the Introduction to the Book of Jonah in the New American Bible, we read:

“The story of Jonah has great theological import. It concerns a disobedient prophet who rejected his divine commission, was cast overboard in a storm and swallowed by a great fish, rescued in a marvelous manner, and returned to his starting point.” https://bible.usccb.org/bible/jonah/0

This should give all Catholics — especially those among us who have, perhaps for years or decades, refused to take the principles of our Catholic faith into the voting booth — this should give us great hope that, like Jonah, God will give us a chance to repent of our disobedience and to set aside our personal political preferences when they conflict with God’s Holy Mandate.

Taking into account the circumstances of our First Reading today, the New American Bible Introduction to the Book of Jonah continues:

“Now he obeys and goes to Nineveh, the capital of Israel’s ancient enemy. The Ninevites listen to his message of doom and repent immediately. All, from king to lowliest subject, humble themselves in sackcloth and ashes. Seeing their repentance, God does not carry out the punishment planned for them. At this, Jonah complains, angry because the Lord spares them.” https://bible.usccb.org/bible/jonah/0

Notice that, even after the Ninevites turned to God, Jonah was angry because he did not want his enemies to experience God’s goodness. Jonah’s hatred of his enemies was greater than his gratitude for God’s goodness…to him!

And this is where the rubber hits the road for us Catholics — especially for Catholics who have voted for pro-abortion, pro-gender ideology, pro-religious persecution politicians, despite the fact that these politicians — like our current President — promised — in advance — during the campaign — to attack the very Catholic faith they profess and that we practice.

Just as it was distasteful to Jonah to bring about the conversion of those he hated, it will be distressing for compromised and compromising Catholics to refuse, from this day forward, to ever knowingly and deliberately vote an anti-Christ public servant into power — whether it be on the local school board or in the Oval Office.

Here’s the bottom line:

If we Catholics cannot unite around the most basic principle of the sacredness of human life — then all talk of “unity” among us — as brothers and sisters in Christ — is nothing more than hypocritical, political lip-service.

The Time Of Fulfillment

Catholics on both ends of the political spectrum must heed the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel:

“This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Those on the political Right who are ready to condemn our President to the fires of Hell for his attacks on life, marriage, and religious freedom, rather than to pray for his conversion and salvation, are no better than those on the political Left who consigned the unborn to execution in order to make Biden their president.

The faithless Left is complicit in physical abortion — condemning babies to execution by enabling their destruction.

The faithless Right is guilty of spiritual abortion — condemning souls to Satan by refusing to pray for the enemies of Christ.

In other words, every one of us — starting with your preacher — must make a brutally honest Examination of Conscience to determine the ways we rationalize our resistance to God.

Those in the Church who lean to the Right must say to God, “Forgive me for condemning a wayward brother in Christ — Joe Biden — to the pit of Hell by my refusal to pray for him.”

And those in the Church who lean Left must say to God, “Forgive me for condemning babies to death to get Joe Biden elected.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ, 2021 is our year to invite Jesus back to the place where He belongs…right smack in the center of our hearts, minds, and souls.

Jonah didn’t expect the conversion of the Ninevites, nor did he actually want their conversion. But God bypassed this disobedient prophet’s reluctance and saved many souls in spite of the prophet’s spitefulness.

As I have thought about the danger to which our President has deliberately subjected his soul, one particular Scripture from Mark’s Gospel kept emerging: “…What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:36).

President Joe Biden has placed his own soul on the fast track to Hell.

He is too smart not to know what he is doing.

He is choosing this.

And, so, we must choose to fight for his soul, even as he abandons his soul to Satan.

But if we want him to end up in Hell, then we have placed ourselves squarely on the same road to Perdition.

If we want our President to stop declaring war on the unborn, then we must stop hating him and, instead, pray daily for his conversion and salvation, or we, too, are guilty of promoting abortion — the abortion of a fellow Catholic’s soul.

But that does not mean that we stay quiet about the evil these faithless politicians — and the Catholics who put them in power — perpetrate!

In fact, we must become more vocal in our opposition to abortion…to the destruction of marriage and family through the promotion of gender ideology…to the repression of the Catholic Faith through religiously bigoted policies like the Obamacare contraception mandate.

Let’s turn now to today’s Gospel, focusing on Jesus’ words to the fishermen He recruited for His mission:

Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).

It sounds kind of heroically romantic, to abandon everything and follow Jesus, doesn’t it?

But it’s only when we go back to the section in Mark’s Gospel from which we found the verse on gaining the whole world and losing one’s soul — and reading that verse in context — that we understand the real implications of Christ’s call to His first disciples.

“And [Jesus] called to Him the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:34-38).

To follow Jesus doesn’t mean to tag along and watch. Jesus had “set His face like flint” (cf. Isaiah 50:7) on the entirety of His mission — not just the part about making people happy by feeding their bellies, healing them of their diseases or driving out their demons — but also the part where He had to suffer and die before He rose from the dead and usher in the new Kingdom — the only real and lasting Kingdom — the Kingdom of Heaven.

To “follow Jesus” means to follow Him all the way to Crucifixion — to embrace our own suffering and our own death to sin that flows naturally from resisting this world — this world which, as St. John wrote in his first New Testament Letter, is in the power of the evil one (cf. John 5:19).

When Jesus says. . . .

“This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15) . . . He means it….especially the part about repentance.

Many of us are wondering why 2020 — and, already, 2021 — have been so brutal — why it seems that evil is prevailing moment-by-moment.

It’s high time that we stopped thinking in terms of Right and Left and thought instead of Right and Wrong.

Because . . . as Jesus said . . . “This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15).

Yes, 2021 is the time of fulfillment.

The Kingdom of God is at hand . . . in 2021, because Jesus is here — God with us (cf. Matt. 1:23) — in our Church, in the Eucharist, and — to the extent that we have kept our souls in a state of Grace — shortly in our bodies and souls in Holy Communion.

Grow A Spine

And speaking of Holy Communion, we need to be crystal clear about something, because the disturbing dilemma of anti-life, anti-family, anti-marriage, anti-religious freedom Catholic politicians receiving Holy Communion is likely to plague us for the foreseeable future…unless the bishops of the United States — as a body of faithful brothers — grow a spine and stand up for Christ clearly, consistently . . . and unequivocally.

St. Paul helps us understand what an anti-Catholic Catholic politician receiving Holy Communion does to his or her own soul:

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (1 Cor. 11:27-29).

Not only does a Catholic in mortal sin not receive any benefit from the Eucharist, but he or she ingests spiritual poison by mixing the Holy Eucharist with a corrupted soul.

Just as medical doctors warn us against mixing certain pharmaceuticals, spiritual doctors — bishops and priests — must warn their flock about the spiritually suicidal act of receiving Holy Communion without having repented of, and confessed, mortal sin.

Let us be clear: To receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin is to deliberately abort one’s own soul — to commit spiritual suicide.

Any bishop or priest who claims that withholding Holy Communion from a Catholic public figure who works to enshrine mortal sin into law is “politicizing the Eucharist” is, himself, guilty of the very divisiveness that he condemns — even if his hat and vestments are red!

A bishop or priest who administers Holy Communion knowingly and readily to President Joe Biden—without Biden’s prior public repudiation of his scandalous promotion of abortion, of the destruction of marriage and of the crushing of religious freedom — that bishop or priest is guilty of spiritual “assisted suicide” and will, himself, answer for God for his sin.

The ultimate politicizing of the Eucharist by a bishop or priest is to put his own politics before the salvation of souls, to refuse to call the wayward politician to repentance — clearly and publicly — when efforts to do so privately and personally have failed.

It is no act of love — it is no sign of unity — for a timid bishop or spineless priest — to speed a politician’s pathway to Hell by feeding him the Body of Christ while he or she has the blood of innocents on his or her hands.

We have a lot to pray for in 2021, above all the “resurrection” of Godly courage among our clergy — bishops and priests.

In his first public sermon, Jesus, quoting the Prophet Isaiah, said:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).

2021 is the acceptable year of the Lord . . . The year for us to. . . . Repent, and believe in the Gospel (Mark 1:15).