💖 HOMILY - FEBRUARY 20 💖

First Reading - Isaiah 58:1-9 

Gospel - Matthew 9:14-15

The readings today bring us into the true spirit of fasting and conversion. Especially in the early days of Lent, the Church invites us to move beyond external practices and to rediscover the heart that God desires. Fasting, prayer, and sacrifice are meaningful only when they lead to a deeper relationship with God and a renewed love for others.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks strongly to a people who believe they are honoring God through fasting, yet their lives remain unchanged. They fast, but at the same time they quarrel, oppress, and ignore the needs of the poor. Through the prophet, God makes clear that the fasting he desires is not merely abstaining from food, but loosening the bonds of injustice, sharing bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and caring for the afflicted. True fasting opens the heart. It turns us outward. It restores relationships. When fasting leads to compassion and justice, then prayer becomes authentic, and God’s light breaks forth like the dawn.

In the Gospel, the disciples of John ask Jesus why his disciples do not fast. Jesus answers with the image of the wedding feast. The guests cannot mourn while the bridegroom is with them. His presence brings joy. Yet he also points ahead to a time when the bridegroom will be taken away, and then they will fast. Jesus reveals that fasting is not an empty obligation but something connected to love and longing. When we fast, we express our desire for God, our hunger for his presence, and our readiness to be transformed.

Dear friends, fasting without love becomes empty, and religious practice without conversion becomes hollow. God is not impressed by external gestures alone; he looks at the heart. The fasting that pleases him is the one that changes how we live, how we speak, and how we treat others.

Lent, therefore, is not about proving our discipline but about allowing God to reshape us. When we fast, we become more aware of our dependence on God. When we pray, we open space for his voice. When we give to others, we reflect his mercy.

The question for us today is simple: does our fasting make us more loving, more patient, more attentive to those in need? If it does, then our fasting becomes a path to joy, because it brings us closer to Christ, the true bridegroom, whose presence alone satisfies the deepest hunger of the human heart.