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| “To Visit the Imprisoned” by Cornelis de Wael, c. 1640 |
Reading I: Isaiah 58:1-9a
Thus says the Lord GOD:
Cry out full-throated and unsparingly,
lift up your voice like a trumpet blast;
Tell my people their wickedness,
and the house of Jacob their sins.
They seek me day after day,
and desire to know my ways,
Like a nation that has done what is just
and not abandoned the law of their God;
They ask me to declare what is due them,
pleased to gain access to God.
“Why do we fast, and you do not see it?
afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?”
Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits,
and drive all your laborers.
Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting,
striking with wicked claw.
Would that today you might fast
so as to make your voice heard on high!
Is this the manner of fasting I wish,
of keeping a day of penance:
That a man bow his head like a reed
and lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
Your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
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Commentary on Is 58:1-9a
This passage is from what is known as Deutero-Isaiah. It was written in the latter part of the Babylonian exile (700 BC). The prophet begins this passage with a recounting of God’s call to him and his mission statement: “Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins.” The Jerusalem Bible translation is better: “Proclaim their faults to my people, their sins to the House of Jacob,” as is the Revised Standard Version [Navarre] “declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.”
Isaiah’s lament continues as he chastises the people for missing the point of their fasts of atonement. They perform the rituals and follow the law but then violate the spirit of God’s Law by being uncaring and cruel to each other.
Finally the prophet explains the spirit of the law, what that is, and how it is to impact their actions. He closes with a description of the reward for following the spirit of God’s Law: “Your integrity will go before you and the glory of the Lord behind you. Cry, and the Lord will answer; call, and he will say, ‘I am here.’”
CCC: Is 58:6-7 2447
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 18-19
R. (19b) A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
“Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight.”
R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
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Commentary on Ps 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 18-19
Psalm 51, the most famous of the seven penitential psalms, repeats the sentiment expressed in Isaiah regarding the need for heartfelt repentance on the part of the faithful. It goes on to emphasize the need for forgiveness. The final strophe is parallel to Isaiah’s description of the acceptable fast in Isaiah 58:6-7.
CCC: Ps 51:6 431, 1850; Ps 51:19 1428, 2100
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Gospel: Matthew 9:14-15
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,
“Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.”
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Commentary on Mt 9:14-15
Jesus is challenged by the disciples of John the Baptist and asked why his disciples do not keep the ritual fasts of Pharisaic law. (According to the apostolic response in their early teaching documents, the early Christians were to fast on different days than the Jews.) “But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites; Matthew 6:16 for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week; but do ye fast on the fourth day and the Preparation (Friday).” Didache (8.1) [4])
The Lord responds with the analogy of a marriage banquet where there can be no mourning as long as the bridegroom is present. He refers, of course, to his own presence and the need for fasting only after he is gone.
“As usual, whenever the image of the wedding feast appears in the New Testament, there is no readily identifiable ‘bride’ to correspond to Jesus the Bridegroom. At the symbolic level this is so because, while each person present at the banquet may be variously looked upon in his individuality as a wedding guest and in this sense as a ‘son of the wedding chamber’, in reality, in the mystical sense, they are all together ‘The Bride’.” [5]
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Reflection:
One of the blessings of our Lenten celebration is that we feel the requirements of our faith press more firmly upon us. In scripture today we first hear the Prophet Isaiah exhort us to adopt an interior fast, as well as the exterior expression of repentance by abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent, as we are required to do. The Lord expects us to undergo a spiritual fast that expresses itself in actions pleasing to God.
To make certain that we recognize the need to adopt this discipline, the Gospel reminds us of the rationale the Lord uses to explain this: his own presence. Jesus explains the reason his disciples are effectively “dispensed” from fasting is that while he is still with them, mourning his loss is inappropriate. It is the same logic we apply during Lent on the Lord’s Day – Sunday. We do not fast nor are we required to follow the discipline of self-denial we have established for the other days of the week during the Lenten season. Sundays we are with the Lord in the Eucharist. How can we mourn when we rejoice at his solemn presence?
We return to Isaiah’s exhortation on this first Friday of the Lenten season. God commands us through his prophetic words to adopt the attitude of Christ (although the author would not have known it was Christ’s attitude he was describing).
He asks for actions that are very specific:
“This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.”
How, one might ask, can we “release those bound unjustly”? Or “set free the oppressed”? Have we not bound others in our anger, have we not oppressed others with our ambition or greed? We are called to look at our motives and see there the results of our own actions. And this is not limited to those with whom we work or go to school; rather the first place we look to release those bound unjustly and free the oppressed is within our own families. It is there that the yoke rests more heavily and the bonds cut most deeply. It is also there that forgiveness is most difficult and reconciliation most painful.
As for “sheltering the oppressed,” “clothing the naked,” and “not turning your back on your own,” these gifts of time and charity are easily associated with what we are called to be as Christians living in an unforgiving community in difficult economic times. Our special attention is directed there during this season of our fast.
Today, indeed, we feel the weight of the discipline of our faith pressing upon us. We pray that our strength is equal to the task and ask the Holy Spirit to add strength to our own.
Pax
[1] The picture is “To Visit the Imprisoned” by Cornelis de Wael, c. 1640.
[3] The readings are taken from the New American Bible, with the exception of the psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for English in Liturgy (ICEL). This republication is not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
[4] The Didache was written in the first or second century A.D. and was recommended by Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265-c. 340).
[5] Fire of Mercy Heart of the Word Volume I. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, © 1996 p. 439
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