March 11, 2011
Friday after Ash Wednesday
By Melanie Rigney
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. (Isaiah 58:3-7)
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. (Psalms 51-18-19)
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.” (Matthew 9:14-15)
Piety
Lord, sometimes I focus too much on half-hearted burnt offerings and not enough on living the way You desire. I pray for assistance in remembering what Your Son’s journey this season teaches about the way to spend my time in this world.
Study
After two days, and the reality of our Lenten promises may be beginning to set in. Not drinking wine for six weeks (whether or not you count the Sundays) is hard! Not gossiping is hard! Having to rearrange activities usually conducted on a weekday evening or Saturday morning to accommodate a pledge to volunteer is hard! But we’re Catholics, right, and we can do anything for six weeks.
In his 2011 Lenten message, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that it’s not about being able to do (or not do) something for six weeks:
In synthesis, the Lenten journey, in which we are invited to contemplate the Mystery of the Cross, is meant to reproduce within us “the pattern of his death” (Philippians 3: 10), so as to effect a deep conversion in our lives; that we may be transformed by the action of the Holy Spirit, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus; that we may firmly orient our existence according to the will of God; that we may be freed of our egoism, overcoming the instinct to dominate others and opening us to the love of Christ. (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/lent/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20101104_lent-2011_en.html)
Breathtaking and daunting, isn’t it, to think of our own transformation, our continual conversion, in the same context of St. Paul’s? Which was the harder “death” for Paul—his martyrdom near Rome, or the setting aside of his old life that came with his conversion? Which is harder for us: Giving up wine for six weeks, or converting our lifestyle to moderation? Which is harder for us: Giving up gossiping for six weeks, or converting our minds, hearts, and mouths to a reflex of love and prudence? Giving up watching TV on Tuesday nights, or converting ourselves to a life that instinctively reaches out to assist those in need?
It’s your choice: six weeks, or a lifetime. God will love you either way. But which is the fasting He wishes?
Action
What is the fasting the Lord wishes for you? How are you moving toward His desire?
