“Freely Choosing to Suffer with Christ for Solidarity with the Poor”

Homily, Friday After Ash Wednesday
Mass for High School Teachers’ Convocation
March 7, 2025; Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption

Introduction

Now that we have begun the season of Lent, we will be hearing frequently from the prophets at Mass over the next several weeks.  We will especially be hearing from the prophet Isaiah, as it is the second part of this book, Deutero-Isaiah, which preaches a message of hope of return from the exile, and where we find the four so-called “Suffering Servant Songs.”

Two-Way Street of Suffering

This figure in the Old Testament betrays a striking resemblance to the identity and mission of our Lord in this world, and foreshadows what God will do in fulfilling His promise to His people.  The Suffering Servant is described as an individual who is abused and humiliated for the sake of his people, he is disciplined and strengthened by the suffering he undergoes, and has a mission to the Gentiles as well.  It is clearly a prophecy of what Jesus will do for his people and the whole world, and even before he came into the world Judaism had seen in these songs a messianic meaning. 

Throughout this season of Lent, and especially as we conclude it with Holy Week, we will be reflecting profoundly on all that our Lord suffered for us, so that he could set us free from sin and death and we could live with him forever in heaven.  But there is another side to this as well: what do we suffer for him?  True discipleship will inevitably mean suffering in this world to preserve the integrity of our faith and of our fidelity to our Lord. 

And so during this season of Lent we freely take on sufferings in the form of fasting and other types of penance, as well as additional practices of prayer and works of charity, so that we ourselves may be disciplined and strengthened for the mission God has entrusted to us.  The passage from the prophet Isaiah we hear at Mass today gives us a very important and necessary reminder of the point of it all.

True Fasting

I think there are few things that upset our Lord more than religiously-minded people who were scrupulous in observing all of the rules and regulations, but were left totally unaffected by it where it really mattered: a life of selfless charity.  There is, of course, nothing new here.  We hear it frequently in the prophets of old, as we do again today.  Isaiah speaks some very strong words to the people of his time, who did observe laws of fasting and devotion, but they then cannot figure out why they are not gaining God’s favor.  And he answers their question, “why?”  “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.” 

They think they are doing good because they are doing their duty, and so God must favor them.  But their hearts are hardened and cold.  God does not want show.  He wants love for the poor: “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.”

Does this mean that God does not want literal fasting, that is, denying ourselves the pleasure of eating so that we might feel the hunger in our body?  To think so would contradict the example of our Lord himself.  As we will hear in the Gospel for Mass this Sunday, as we do every year on the first Sunday of Lent, our Lord retreated into the desert to spend forty days in prayer and fasting.  Our Lord himself fasted, so how much more so must we.

Beginning at Home

The whole point of our fasting is to train us in the school of charity, a charity that is other-centered, seeking the good of the other without counting the cost for ourselves.  Do we do that?  God’s people of old at least fasted even though they failed to fulfill the meaning of it.  Do we even make that effort?  It is fasting that enables those who are comfortable to choose to feel hungry in order to share the lot of those who are hungry by circumstance and not choice.  Unlike the comfortable, they do not know where their next meal is going to come from.  That is how we become sensitized to the plight of the other.

First and foremost, though, do we live this all out where it counts the most: at home?  Isaiah excoriates the people for their fasting ending in “quarreling and fighting,” and exhorts them to true fasting by “not turning [their] back on [their] own.”  We can dream big dreams of going out to make the world a better place, but it is always hardest right at home, in our families, in our neighborhoods, and in our family of faith.  That is why the traditional practices of which Lent reminds us always go together: prayer, fasting and charity. 

Without all three together, we will end up serving ourselves rather than God and the poor.  Without charity, our fasting will be just for show, which can lead to spiritual pride.  Without prayer and the self-denial that comes with fasting, our charity will just become a form of helping us feel good about ourselves for doing something for someone in need, in other words, looking for what we will get out of it rather than allowing it to a true encounter of Christ in the disguise of the poor, as St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta so fondly and frequently reminded us.

Conclusion

My dear teachers, Christ has entrusted to you a precious and life-changing mission: that of teaching our young people what it means to be believers who live with the integrity of faith, and to develop the virtues necessary to suffer the cost of doing so.  You do this especially by your own example, recognizing that selfless charity begins at home, which for you includes especially the classroom and the school campus.  May you inspire your students by word and, especially, example, to know how to deny themselves things that make them comfortable in order to be sensitized to the plight of the poor and live a life of solidarity with them.  “Then [their] light shall break forth like the dawn, and [the] wound[s of the world] shall quickly be healed”; then “[their] vindication shall go before [them],” and “[they] shall cry for help” and “the Lord will answer.”