A reading from the prophet Joel (2:12-18)
‘So now – declares the Lord -
come back to me with all your heart,
fasting, weeping, mourning.’
Tear your hearts and not your clothes
and come back to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger, rich in faithful love,
and he relents from inflicting disaster.
Who knows if he will not return,
relent and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a libation
for the Lord your God?
Blow the ram’s-horn in Zion!
Order a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly,
call the people together,
summon the community,
assemble the elders, gather the children,
even infants at the breast!
Call the bridegroom from his bedroom
and the bride from her canopy!
Between portico and altar let the priests,
the ministers of the Lord, weep,
saying, ‘Spare your people, Lord!
Do not expose your heritage to contempt,
to the sarcasm of the nations!
Why should it be said among the peoples,
“Where is their God?”’
Then, becoming jealous over his land,
the Lord took pity on his people.
Coming back, returning, to God is the challenge of Lent. This is not an external journey, but something of the heart. The prophet Joel, in the time after the exile to Babylon, describes the God who awaits our return with words given to Moses in Exodus 34:6. God is rich in ‘faithful love’, hesed, and ‘slow to anger’. After the devastation of a plague of locusts (Joel 2:3-5), God will restore the blessings of grain and wine. The urgent call to repent has the people react quickly: even the bride and groom leave their wedding chamber. God is portrayed as ‘jealous over his land’, protective of people, and quick to ‘take pity’.
Psalm 51 (50) The Miserere is a penitential psalm traditionally attributed to David, who pleads for forgiveness for his great sins (2 Samuel 11), but later verses – ‘rebuild Jerusalem’ – show the psalm to be of much later date. Fervent joy is the gift of the Lord, who opens our mouths in praise.
A reading from the second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians (5:20 – 6:2)
Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is appealing through us: on Christ’s behalf we beg you, be reconciled to God. He who knew no sin he made sin for our sake, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As fellow-workers we appeal to you also not to accept the grace of God in vain, for he says: At an acceptable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation.
Paul and his fellow-workers are ambassadors speaking for Christ, delivering God’s appeal for ‘reconciliation’. This is only possible because God made Christ into sin ‘for our sake’, immersing him in humanity, with all its faults, so that we might become in him God’s ‘justness’, God’s ‘righteousness’. We are invited not to waste the grace of God, which comes at the ‘right time’, the kairos, and on the ‘day of salvation’. With the repetition of the Greek word nun Paul stresses that the words of Scripture (Isaiah 49:8) are fulfilled ‘now’.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (6:1-6, 16-18)
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Be careful not to parade your righteousness before others to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win human admiration. Amen I say to you, they have had their reward. But when you give alms, your left hand must not know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be in secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.
‘And whenever you pray, do not be like hypocrites: they love to pray standing in the synagogues and at street corners for people to see them. Amen I say to you, they have had their reward. But whenever you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
‘Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy look as hypocrites do: they go about looking unsightly to show others they are fasting. Amen I say to you, they have had their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that you may not seem to others to be fasting but only to your Father in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’
In this passage from the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warns the disciples not to ‘parade’ their righteousness (dikaiosyne). If you make a spectacle of your good deeds, this will be your reward. A trio of teaching considers almsgiving, prayer and fasting, with thrice repeated phrases: do not be ‘hypocrites’; ‘Amen I say to you they have had their reward’; ‘do things in secret’ where ‘your Father sees’. The hypocrite wears a mask of righteousness while his heart is far away; he prefers the praise of the world, but true righteousness is done in secret. The words about oil on the head and a washed face are an unsettling challenge to public forms of penance.
Have I experienced the faithful love and pity of God?
For those who parade their piety, we pray to the Lord.