February 20, 2026 -- Friday after Ash Wednesday
Homily
We have had this Gospel in a different context in recent weeks, when it was part of a series of discussions between the Pharisees and Jesus about the observance of the law. Reading these words of Jesus again in the context of Lent, we are obviously struck more by the last sentence: ‘The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast’.
There are two ways in which the Bridegroom (the expression by which Jesus refers to Himself) is taken from us. He was taken from us by His death; and He is also taken from us by our sins, which separate us from Him. In both cases, fasting becomes a necessity once again.
The social dimension of sin, so strongly emphasised in the first reading from the Book of Isaiah, should be taken into consideration. Jesus comparing Himself to a bridegroom and His disciples to the friends of the bridegroom who share His joy and cannot be in mourning as long as the celebration lasts and the bridegroom has not gone off with his bride, definitely places the relationship of His disciples with Him in a context of celebration and in a community context. Anyone who sins therefore sins not only against God and His Son, but also against the community, for whom they become - in the strict sense - a party spoiler.
But the text of Isaiah goes further, in a perspective that Jesus will often take up again in the Gospel and which recurs especially in Chapter 25 of Matthew. God particularly identifies with the little ones, the poor and the needy. What we do to them or refuse to do for them, we do or refuse to do for God.
Fasting, which has no value in itself but does have a symbolic (or sacramental) value, loses all its value if the reality it is intended to signify does not exist. Fasting is meant to signify our pain at having been separated from God by sin and our desire to return to Him to receive His forgiveness. However, this gesture is meaningless if, even as we make it, we continue to actively separate ourselves from God by practising injustice towards His privileged children. ‘The fast that pleases me, says the Lord, is this: loose the unjust chains, loosen the bonds of the yoke... share your bread with the hungry, welcome the unfortunate and homeless into your home, etc.’
And the conclusion of the text of Isaiah is very beautiful, because it implies a reversal of roles between God and us: If we thus practise justice, we shall be transfigured (‘thy light shall break forth as the dawn’), the glory of the Lord shall be our rear guard. It is we who shall call upon Him, and He who shall answer, ‘Here I am’.
Nowhere else in Scripture is there perhaps a stronger affirmation of the social dimension of sin and the contemplative dimension of social justice.
Armand Veilleux