Friday After Ash Wednesday, March 7, 2025

Friday After Ash Wednesday, March 7, 2025

Today’s Readings, from the USCCB:

Reading 1

Isaiah 58:1-9a

Thus says the Lord GOD: 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!

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 18-19

R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.

R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

For I acknowledge my offense, and my sin is before me always: "Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight."

R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

For you are not pleased with sacrifices; should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it. My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

Verse Before the Gospel

Amos 5:14

Seek good and not evil so that you may live, and the Lord will be with you.

Gospel

Matthew 9:14-15

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast."

 

The Fast That God Wants

"Is this the manner of fasting I wish…? 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…" – Isaiah 58:5-7

Lent always starts with the question: What am I giving up?

For years, I had my answer ready before anyone even asked. Beef, pork, poultry – gone. It became such a routine that people just expected it. Oh, he doesn’t eat meat during Lent. It was my thing. My version of sacrifice. And maybe, at one point, it really did feel like something meaningful. But after so many years, it became more of a habit than an offering. A box to check. A way to say See? I did something.

But did it really change me?

Did it bring me closer to God?

Did it make me feel any less lost?

Or was it just another way to go through the motions?

That’s why this year is different. This time, I don’t want to just give something up – I want to be changed.

And maybe that starts with humility.

The Heavy Weight of Unworthiness

“For you are not pleased with sacrifices… My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn." – Psalm 51

That verse hits differently today.

Because if I’m being honest, humility has never been something I had to force on myself. It’s something I live with – except not in the way God intends.

I don’t struggle with pride. I struggle with worthlessness.

I don’t look at myself and think I’m great. I look at myself and think I’m not enough. Not good enough. Not holy enough. Not righteous enough. Not the kind of person the Church would hold up as an example.

And that’s the voice I carry with me into Lent.

I kneel in a pew and wonder if I belong there.

I bow my head in prayer and wonder if God even wants to hear from me.

I step into a church and feel like an outsider—not because I don’t believe, but because I don’t know if I am believed in.

And maybe that’s why this season has always been about giving something up for me. Because that part is easy. That part is tangible. That part I can control.

But humbling myself before God? Admitting how small I feel? Acknowledging the weight of my own self-doubt?

That’s harder.

And yet – Isaiah’s words today tell me that’s exactly what God wants.

Not empty gestures.

Not suffering for suffering’s sake.

Not just another year of giving up meat because that’s what I always do.

But something real.

The Fast That Matters

So this year, I start with something different.

No shots when I go out.

It might not sound like much, but I know what it means for me.

Because shots are where the night changes. Shots are where I stop paying attention, where I push myself past that line. And if Lent is about gaining control over myself, about resetting, about trying to be better – then maybe this is where I begin.

And more than that, I choose this journey.

Instead of another empty sacrifice, I choose to actually walk through Lent.

To wrestle with my faith.

To lean into the discomfort.

To let myself feel the ways I’ve been running from God.

To sit with my own unworthiness – not in shame, but in surrender.

Because maybe God isn’t asking me to be worthy.

Maybe He’s just asking me to come to Him as I am.

And maybe – just maybe – that’s enough.