The most famous whale in the world? These two misericords show the whale that swallowed Jonah. In the first, can you see Jonah being thrown overboard? And there in the second (below) he is rising from the whale's mouth. [click images for larger views]   For the ancient Hebrews, the ocean was a very scary place. They mostly lived in deserts and the idea of travelling across something as chaotic and treacherous as the sea was very disturbing. But other peoples who lived nearby had mastered the art of sailing and so, of course, of fishing. When the story of Jonah was written, whales ranged through the Mediterranean Sea but by the end of the Roman Empire, every species there had been exterminated. This was the beginning of a terrible history of whales being mistreated by sailors. From the 16th century, European sailors moved into one new area after another killing whales, mainly for their oil, until the supply was exhausted. No thought was given to the future. Nowadays, of course, whales are largely protected. The stupidity and brutality of earlier generations has been recognised. Whales have become one of those animals - including pandas, tigers, seal pups and so on - that are instantly recognised as 'endangered' species. We even see them as 'cute'. Other animals are less favoured in our eyes - tapeworms, maggots, sharks… In fact Jonah was more likely to have been swallowed by a shark than a whale. The Bible, after all, says he was swallowed by 'a big fish'. Humans have reason to be scared of many sharks, and they don't look cute either. Click here for another thought on sharks, and what we have to learn from them. The story of Jonah is on these misericords because people thought it was a prophecy about the way Jesus would die and rise again (see Matthew 12:40-41). The time Jonah spent in the belly of the whale was interpreted as an emblem of Jesus's descent into Death/Hell itself. In the Middle Ages it was believed that Jesus went to Hell to release important people from Old Testament times (Adam and Eve and all the prophets for example) so that they could enter heaven. Jesus had come to save all creation. Maybe, just as whales and sharks, butterflies and mosquitoes have their place in the ecology of earth, so all people will have a place in the ecology of heaven!