Remember Isaiah 58
Notes from the Neches
Reverend Monsignor James Vanderholt
Lent will be pretty much over by the time this column is published. So will many of our Lenten resolutions. If this is the situation, what does this tell us of the importance of Lenten resolutions in our lives? What does it tell us of the importance of Lent, as well as resolutions in our lives?
The Feb. 22 issue had an excellent column on “Making a Good Lent” by former Beaumonter Sherry Green Antonetti (page 11). This column has the same theme, but it takes off from the 58th chapter of Isaiah. That scripture is read in the two Masses between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday in Lent.
The location at the time is not meant as a filler but to set the tone for Lent itself. The themes of Lent are also the themes of our lives.
Isaiah 58 sets a theme of fasting for Lent as well as in the days of Isaiah. Written around 580 B.C., fasting was stressed at that time. The Jewish people were to fast four days a month for four months of the year. Isaiah does not stress any intrinsic value in fasting itself. Its value comes when it is an expression of our common relation with other people because of our common relation under God.
After expressing cautions about fasting, Isaiah reaches his main point in verses 6 and following. He wrote:
“This is the fasting I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them and not turning your back on our own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.”
The above quotation is a concise summary of the essentials of true religion. Isaiah anticipates the biblical criteria for the final judgment in Matthew 25:31-46. The message is not unique to Isaiah in the Hebrew scripture tradition. Check with Amos 5:18-27 who insists that worship without justice has no value.
The specific applications, e.g., freeing the oppressed, clothing the naked, may be more difficult to apply in our time. Serving the needs of the other can often be fulfilled by cooperating/participating in the Bishop’s Faith Appeal.
Let me call to the attention of the ETC readers that there are two outstanding columnists in each issue.
Father Ron Rolheiser is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio. He is nationally famous and has written spiritual books that have been on the Catholic best seller list. His columns contain the same ideas you will find in his books. He appears in each issue and has been in the ETC for over a year.
A more recent columnist is Sherry Green Antonetti whose column appears monthly. She is a native Beaumonter who is now living in Baltimore. I predict she will soon become nationally known.
