Father Thomas Welbers' Homily	Jump back to Homily Index
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, March 2, 2003 Hosea 2:16b, 17b, 21-22 2 Corinthians 3:1b-6 Mark 2:18-22	Listen to Audio

Ash Wednesday is late this year, but it still seems to come upon us by surprise! Didn’t we just get through Christmas? Didn’t we just welcome the New Year? Don’t we still find ourselves sometimes writing 2002 on our checks?

Yet this week as, as we heard at the beginning of our first reading from the Prophet Hosea, we are being called into the desert of Lent. However, this summons to go into the desert isn’t a gloomy one, it’s not even a call to deprivation or fasting. In fact, in the Gospel, Jesus told us not to fast – he, the bridegroom, is with us. What are we to make of this?
We can get a clue about what Jesus meant from the prophet Isaiah, in a reading that has traditionally been associated with Lent and what God wants us to do during Lent:

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.
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 arise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday.
Then the Lord will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land,
he will renew your strength
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.

The goal of Lent is not so much self-denial and fasting, or even self-perfection. The goal of Lent is rather:

• To open our eyes to where the Lord is to be found – in the “least of his brothers and sisters”;
• T o open our ears to the voice of the Lord in the cry of the poor;
• To open our hearts so that we may be instruments of his compassion.

The practice of Lent is not an individual one. We join together in prayer and the works of mercy to support one another in putting on the mind of Jesus Christ. We empty ourselves only in order to be filled with him.

May our prayer of the next few days give direction to our Lenten spirit and practice. As he leads us into the desert, with our hand in his, may our prayer be simply: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”

© Thomas Welbers, 2003