Fr. Roger J. Landry
Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph
Alexandria, South Dakota
Friday after Ash Wednesday, Extraordinary Form
March 4, 2022
Is 58:1-9, Ps 127:4, Mt 5:43-48.6:1-4
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
- On Ash Wednesday, Jesus spoke to us about fasting, telling us to not to neglect our appearance to gain the attention of others but to anoint our head and wash our face and fast in a hidden way for our Father. It was meant to communicate that the purpose of our fasting is to come into greater communion with God the Father, to learn how to hunger for what God hungers, so that every cell of our body desires what he desires. Our fasting is meant fundamentally not to tame our appetite for food and drink, but to stoke all the appetites of our soul to God’s desires.
- That’s the type of fasting God speaks about in the first reading through the Prophet Isaiah. The Israelites were fasting but God wasn’t pleased because they thought that their going without food during daylight hours alone was somehow enough to please the Lord and get him to listen to their prayers. God sent the Prophet Isaiah to sound his call to conversion so that they would grasp that the fasting the Lord desires is to change their hungers to align with his.
- “Cry out full-throated and unsparingly,” the Lord instructs Isaiah. “Tell my people of their wickedness. … They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God [by their bodily prayers]. Why do we fast, [they ask], and you do not see it? Why do we afflict ourselves and you take not of it?” The Lord then responds to their questions. He says, because “on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, [not mine], and drive all your laborers [rather than treat them with charity and mercy]. Your fast ends [not in holiness, not in communion and love but] in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw,” an image that brings to mind the way bears would attack each other to death. “Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!” God obviously loved them and wanted to answer their prayers but not when they thought all they needed to do was to abstain from food while continuing with unjust and evil practices contrary to his will.
- God then tells them what he hungers for, and instructs them about the type of fast that will get them to hunger for the same things. It’s all about charity, especially for those in most need of it. “This is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, … 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.” God wants us to be starving for what he starves, for us to release his sons and daughters imprisoned unjustly, breaking the yokes that bind them to slavery and servitude, feeding his hungry children, clothing the naked ones, and in a particular way caring for our own, for our family members, natural or spiritual. Jesus himself would say that he had come to set the captives free. As we will hear in the Gospel on Monday, he personally identifies with all of those in such circumstances, reminding us we would be judged on how we responded to him in disguise when he was hungry, thirst, naked, on the move, imprisoned or sick.
- In the Gospel, Jesus gets even more specific about the type of hunger he wants to distinguish us, the type of appetite for charity he wants our fasting to lead to. In a context in which he speaks about almsgiving, not to win the praise of others but to please God, he gets to the most revolutionary and challenging part of his teaching, what distinguishes Christianity from every other religion and moral philosophy: his command to love even our enemies. Jesus calls us to do far more than merely tolerate those who oppose us or not be subsumed with a spirit of revenge toward them. He calls us to love them, to do good to them when they hate us, to bless them when they curse us, to pray for them when they mistreat us, to turn the other cheek when they slap us, to give our undergarments to those who take our coats, and ultimately to be willing to die for them. In doing so, Jesus is trying to help us to learn how to be like him, to love others as he has loved us first, to be holy as the Lord our God is holy, to act in accordance with his image and likeness in which we were created. He wants us to be different than the rest, who feel justified in quarreling and fighting when others start it or they believe they have justification, who strike others with wicked claw when others attack first with hateful talon, who permit others to remain bound, oppressed, hungry, homeless, naked and out of communion because they don’t think they’re their brother’s and sister’s keepers.
- The type of conversion Jesus wants of us in Lent is to become like him. He loves those who don’t love him and even those who have made themselves his enemies through sin. He blesses those who curse him and blaspheme against him. He prays for those who persecute him. We see this Gospel put into practice in all its clarity on Good Friday, as Jesus prayed to the Father to forgive his executioners, those who were mocking him, and all those whose sins were bringing about his expiatory death, “for they know not what they are doing.” When the soldiers of the High Priest or the Roman guards struck him with wicked claw on one cheek, Jesus could have easily annihilated them by his divine power, but he didn’t fight back, because he loved those who were harming him. When they stripped him of his cloak, he allowed them to strip him of his tunic as well. When they bid him to walk on the road to Calvary, he walked a second mile. In all of this, Jesus tells us, “Come, follow me!” He wants us to be distinguished from all the rest by the way we, as Christians, love everyone like he does, including those who don’t love us. “For if you love those who love you,” he says, “what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?”
- In all of this, Jesus is calling us this Lent to commit to live by his standard of charity, to stoke our appetites for the type of love he has, to give alms in a way that will really please God. The standard of most in the world is reciprocity. We generally try to treat well those who treat us well; if others treat us poorly, we feel justified in doing the same to them. The human notion of “justice,” of “quid pro quo,” however, is not enough. Jesus calls Christians to a much higher standard, the standard of God the Father, to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful, to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, even and especially when others do not deserve it. This is what love really is, doing what is best for the other at all times, even when the other does not reciprocate it, or appreciate it, or even acknowledge it. This is what he wants us to hunger for. This is the type of alms he wants us to be lavish in giving. This is what he is crying out for, full-throated and unsparingly
- Today we have three great examples of those who lived this way. The first is the 15th-Century Prince St. Casimir, who went from all night vigils in prayer before the Holy Eucharist pondering the Lord’s passion and self-giving love, to going out to care for the poor during the day and to resisting his Father, who wanted him to carry out military campaigns against those who had made themselves the enemy of the realm. The others are 14th Carmelites Saint Avertanus and Blessed Romeo, who out of love for God in all night vigils decided to go to adore Him on pilgrimage to many sanctuaries, but along the way, decided that their pilgrimage was to cross the road to care for victims of the plague, to which both of them would eventually succumb in Lucca, Italy.
- Their triple witness attests, in the midst of this retreat on Reinvigorating our Eucharistic Awareness, Amazement, Love and Life, that our our Eucharistic fast is meant to do more than help us hunger for Jesus in the Holy Eucharist but to become ravenous for what he hungers. When he says, “Do this in memory of me,” he instructs us to do more than celebrate the Mass, but to live in a Eucharistic way, in which we, like did for us, give our body and even shed our blood out of love for others, including for those who have made themselves adversaries. He wants us to feed them, to give them drink, to forgive them, to rescue them, in short to love them to the extreme. Then, to use Isaiah’s words, our “light shall break forth like the dawn,” “the glory of the Lord shall be [our] rear guard,” and the Lord will say, “Here I am!” This is the way the Lord, who sees all we do including in secret, will repay us with himself in this world and eternally.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah
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!
Gradual
One thing I ask of the LORD; this I seek: To dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life, To gaze on the LORD’s beauty, to visit his temple.
Tract
O Lord, do not deal with us as our sins merit, nor requite us as our deeds deserve. O Lord, do not hold past iniquities against us; may your compassion come quickly, for we have been brought very low. (Kneel) Help us, O God our savior, for the glory of your name. O Lord, deliver us, pardon our sins for your name’s sake.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus said to his disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. [But] take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download