Lent is “full-throated”

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40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday after Ash Wednesday, 07 March 2025
Isaiah 58:1-9     + + +     Matthew 9:14-15

I love your words today,
Lord God our Father
through the Prophet Isaiah:

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 (Isaiah 58:1-9).

So strong was the word
your great prophet had used,
"full-throated" which is 
to express confidently,
with strong feeling
and without limit;
to shout our loudly
in no uncertain terms;
to mince no words,
to emphatically declare
what it really is.

O God forgive us,
as a nation and as a church,
as a community of your disciples
for being so soft,
so disturbingly quiet
and selectively silent
in denouncing
injustice and abuses
happening not only around us
but even by those among us;
we have been so lax,
overly lenient,
always trying to please
everyone
that we have forgotten to stand
for you in Christ Jesus
that so many among us your
priests have abused your
worship,
your prayers,
your liturgy.

Teach us to be like your
tall trees,
so magnificently imposing
minus the pride and airs
many of us exude;
simply rooted and grounded
in you, O Lord,
 firm and unshakeable,
truly a presence in
Christ.

Let us take the challenges
of the Prophet Isaiah
to see fasting not just 
as refraining from food 
and drink but about how
our behavior affect others;
let us empty ourselves first
of the bonds of wickedness
that bind us so that in our fasting
we set the oppressed free
by breaking every yoke (Is.58:6);
let us be one with the hungry
and homeless by realizing our 
nakedness in you, that more
essential than food and things
are those of the Spirit to
experience you among the poor
like the hungry and the homeless (Is.58:7);
let us be your presence in this world
by shouting full-throated 
not just with our voice
but most especially with our
actions and witnessing of your
justice and love.

Loving Father,
you have given us with so
much and we have given
so little
if not nothing at all;
teach us the essence
of fasting which is to give more
of ourselves with others
and to give more of you
and your love,
and kindness,
and mercy,
and joy and life.
Amen.