Dress to God's Word / "Liturgical Dress": Sat. after Ash Wed.

March 8, 2014: Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Readings

Is 58:9b-14 If you remove oppression,... and satisfy the afflicted, the Lord will guide and renew you. If you honor the sabbath, you'll delight in the Lord, and I'll nourish you.

Ps 86:1-6 "Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth." Have mercy on me. I lift my soul to you; gladden it. Attend to my pleading.

Lk 5:27-32 Jesus to Levi: “Follow me”; he left everything and followed. He gave a banquet for him with tax collectors and others; Pharisees complained: “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus: “The healthy don't need a doctor; just the sick. I came to call sinners.”

Pope Francis

Friday homily: Charity is essential to Christian life. Christianity is showing the flesh of Jesus who bends down in front of suffering, not like the Pharisees who criticized Jesus for not fasting and transformed religious life into a love-free ethic. Our Lord saves us through belonging to a people, but they'd lost the sense of belonging to a people. But true charity/fasting is breaking chains of evil, freeing the oppressed, sharing our bread, opening our homes, clothing the naked, and taking care of the sick, elderly, and those who can't give us anything in return; our Lord wants unashamed charity concerned about others: don't be ashamed of the flesh! Our greatest act of holiness relates to the flesh of our brother and of Jesus. Our act of holiness at Mass is not being ashamed of the the Body and Blood of Christ here.

The hardest charity is goodness like the Good Samaritan's. Am I ashamed of the flesh of my brother and sister? When I give alms, do I touch the beggar's hand and look into his eyes? When someone is ill, do I visit and greet them with affection? Have I lost sight of the meaning of a caress? The Pharisees had. Don’t be ashamed of the flesh of our brother; it’s ours!

Reflections

Creighton: Help the poor, the hungry and those in need and you'll have light.

One Bread One Body: God can use our Lenten fasting to open hard hearts and transform society. If we satisfy the conditions of the 1st reading, light shall rise for us... Fasting, in a life in submission to God, will be used to do the impossible.

Passionist: Pope Francis: "If we don't think we're sinners in need of God's mercy, it's better not to go to Mass." He washes the feet of the poor, reaches out to the disabled, and says, "who am I to judge?" Jesus ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners and says it's why he came; so too must we welcome them into our church family. "Does the Eucharist lead me to consider sinners as brothers and sisters and help me rejoice and weep with them?" (Pope Francis) Jesus went to sinners; he didn't wait for them to come to him! Proclaim Jesus in word and deed.