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Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh. He prayed, “I beseech you, Lord, is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish. And now, Lord, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah 4:1-3
O God, our loving Father! How I love your prophet Jonah for many times, I am so like him! Do I really have a reason to be angry with you, when I knew very well how your kindness and mercy would always prevail over people I think deserve your wrath and punishment? How many times I felt my judgment better than yours but, like Jonah, I let your will prevail and then, I complain. Have mercy on me, Lord!
“I have reason to be angry,” Jonah answered, “angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than and hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?”
Jonah 4:9-11
Now, you can no longer hide from me your laughter, O God, to my folly of being angry with you over simple things I have no total control at all when I refuse to do something on things I am capable of affecting and changing for good like caring for people and persons more important above all. Like Jonah, I can see my problem with anger lies deep within me when I cannot accept that I am wrong, that should have listened and followed you.
Teach me to tame my anger, teach me to pray through your Son Jesus Christ who taught us to call you "Father" so I may learn to entrust myself to you fully and let go of the many angers within that drive me to errors. How lovely it is to contemplate the sight of you, Lord Jesus at prayer: so peaceful and gentle, stable and sure in the Father that prompted your disciples to ask you to teach them how to pray. Teach me to pray, loving Jesus, to cleanse myself of impurities that drive me to anger and hate so I may be filled with your Holy Spirit; like St. Bruno who founded the strictest order of contemplative men - the Carthusians - may "I seek God assiduously, to find God promptly, and to possess God fully". Amen.
