[Mary Naeem]

Pope Shenouda III

Jonah

Jonah cried out in his grumbling, saying: "Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!"

Has your anger reached that extent, Jonah, because your word was not carried out, that you saw death better for you than life? First of all. you ought to know that it was God's word and not your own. You were but a deliverer of the message. The owner of the message was God Himself. If God in all His sublimity, greatness and dominion has accepted that to happen, why do you not accept it and you are but dust and ashes!