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Fr Denis has chosen to explore the character of Jonah – a somewhat unlikely hero. The prophet Jonah is a sympathetic partner to help us review our lives. Although a believer in God, Jonah struggles to come to terms with the awful strangeness of God’s choices, particularly God’s mercy; he grapples to find his true self and purpose in life; he tries to flee from the presence of God; he is angry when he finds that God is not angry but all-merciful. Jonah is offered to us as an unusual teacher – awkward, reluctant, disobedient, opinionated, fearful and flighty: the prophet who remains stubborn to the end.

But his story celebrates the beauty of the indiscriminate mercy of God, a message for our time .“There is one constant in the book of Jonah: Jonah’s belief that God’s indiscriminate mercy extended to the pagans of Nineveh is not only inappropriate but incomprehensible: Jonah is scandalised by God’s mercy. Our minor prophet has to learn as we all do, that mercy is indivisible: we cannot plead for mercy for ourselves and then deny it to others.”