Word to the Wise
Saturday, February 17, 2024 - Saturday after Ash Wed.
[Isa 58:9b-14 and Luke 5:27-32]If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for your in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday....[Isaiah] "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus said to them in reply, "Those who are healthy did not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners." [Luke]
Every Lenten season I recall from my initial formation days a little card on the door of one of my fellow Dominican student brothers which read: REPENT!*. The asterisk pointed to a small line at the bottom of the card which read: "If you have already repented, kindly disregard this message." Can we ever disregard it? I hope not. Jesus is calling those who are attentive to that message of repentance. The scribes and Pharisees who disdained the "tax collectors and sinners" with whom Jesus was dining considered themselves to be the righteous ones.
Isaiah points to the way of repentance, which might mean a change in the way we look and act as a society, let alone as individuals! It might mean the way in which our Church treats some people by trying to exclude them from God's grace (as if that is actually possible!)! I have pointed out in parish missions on the night of the Penance Service that reception of the sacrament of reconciliation is not the end but the beginning of repentance! The scriptures offer us ample examples of true repentance if only we put aside political and cultural prejudices which blind us to the "tax collectors and sinners." Addressing those prejudices during Lent (and anytime!) is one way of "rending the heart and not the garments." Jesus is calling. Is our "righteousness" making us deaf? AMEN