February 21, 2026
Saturday after Ash Wednesday
Lectionary: 222
Reading
1
Thus says the
LORD:
If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.
He will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.
The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
“Restorer of ruined homesteads.”
If you hold back your foot on the sabbath
from following your own pursuits on my holy day;
If you call the sabbath a delight,
and the LORD’s holy day honorable;
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice—
Then you shall delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (11ab) Teach
me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Incline your ear, O LORD; answer me,
for I am afflicted and poor.
Keep my life, for I am devoted to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God.
R. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
R. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
R. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.
Verse
Before the Gospel
I take no pleasure
in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord,
but rather in his conversion, that he may live.
Gospel
Jesus saw a tax
collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, “Follow me.”
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors
and others were at table with them.
The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying,
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022126.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
58:9-14
The Scripture lessons as we enter the Lenten season could
hardly be clearer. Lent is not just a time for focusing on ourselves by giving
up things and perhaps even feeling smug about it. It is a time to look beyond
ourselves and to find God there.
Earlier in the passage we read today, Isaiah comments on
complaints being made by people that, though they are fasting, God is not
taking any notice. The reason, says Isaiah, is because while they are
virtuously fasting, they continue to exploit their workers and get involved in
fights and quarrels.
If we call on the Lord for help, he will hear us, but he
does have expectations of us. We must be rid of any form of oppression, false
accusations or malicious speech. We need to share our bread with the hungry and
console the afflicted. When we do this:
…your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday…
you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water
whose waters never fail.
There is a further call to spend the Lord’s day in a more
reverent manner. It is a time to refrain as far as possible from our daily
concerns, and make it more a day for quiet reflection and a time to remember
God’s gifts to us:
…then you shall take delight in the Lord…
Lent, then, is really a time for us to reflect on the
meaning and direction of our lives and to consider what changes are necessary,
not just at this time, but for the year ahead.
Comments Off
Commentary on Luke
5:27-32
Jesus certainly made strange choices in his prospective
followers. In our time, when we look for ‘vocations’, we tend to search among
committed and well-balanced Christians. But in today’s Gospel we see Jesus
picking someone who was regarded as an immoral money-grabber and a religious
outcast.
Tax collectors were despised on two counts. First, they were
seen as venal collaborators with the hated colonial ruler, the Romans, for whom
they were working. Second, they were corrupt and extorted far more money than
was their due.
But Jesus knows his man. At the sound of the invitation,
Levi drops everything—his whole business and the security it brings him. It is
very similar to the fishermen leaving their boats and their nets. He then goes
off after Jesus. Where? For what? He has no idea. Like Peter and Andrew, James
and John before him, in a great act of trust and faith, he throws in his lot
with Jesus, whatever it is going to mean, wherever it is going to bring him. In
Luke’s Gospel particularly, the following of Jesus involves total commitment.
Then, as his last fling so to speak, he throws a party in
his house for all his friends, who of course were social rejects like himself.
The religious-minded scribes and Pharisees were shocked at Jesus’ behaviour.
They complained to the disciples:
Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
Jesus answers for them:
Those who are well have no need of a physician but those
who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
Jesus’ words can be read in two ways. On the one hand, there
is no need to preach to the converted—which is what we do a lot of in our
Christian churches. What is needed is to reach out to those who are lost, whose
lives are going in the wrong direction, who are leading a self-destructive
existence.
And surely that is what the Church needs to be about today.
There is a lot of the Pharisee among us still. We are still shocked if we see a
priest or a ‘good’ Catholic in ‘bad’ company and often jump to hasty and
unjustified conclusions, and think or say “A priest (or sister) should not be
seen in such company.” As a result the Church is, in many cases, very much
confined to the churchgoers in society.
Jesus’ words can also be taken in a sarcastic sense. His
critics regarded themselves as among the well and virtuous. In fact, they
totally lacked the love and compassion of God reflected in Jesus. Their
‘virtue’ did not need Jesus because they were closed to him anyway. We remember
the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple. It was the one
who acknowledged himself as a sinner and wanted God’s mercy who won God’s
favour.
We too need to be careful of sitting in judgment on others,
taking the high moral ground and claiming to be shocked at certain people’s
behaviour. Without exception, we are all in need of healing.
Comments Off
https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/l1007g/
Saturday,
February 21, 2026
Season of Lent
Opening Prayer
Lord our God, merciful
Father, when You call us to repentance, you want us to turn to people and to
build up peace and justice among us all. According to Your promise, let us
become, with Your strength, lights for those in darkness, water for those who
thirst, re-builders of hope and happiness for all.
May we thus become living signs of Your love and loyalty,
for You are our God for ever.
Gospel Reading – Luke. 5: 27-32
Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs
post. He said to him,
"Follow me." And leaving everything behind, he
got up and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,
and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at table with them. The
Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, "Why do
you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus said to them in
reply, "Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I
have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners."
Reflection
Today’s Gospel presents the same
theme which we reflected upon in January in the Gospel of Mark (Mk 2: 13-17).
This time, it is only the Gospel of Luke which speaks and the text is much
shorter, concentrating its attention on the principal supper which is the call
and conversion of Levi, and what the conversion implies for us who are entering
into the time of Lent.
Jesus calls a sinner to be
His disciple. Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector, and he immediately left
everything, follows Jesus, and begins to form part of the group of the
disciples. Luke says that Levi had prepared a great banquet in his house. In
the Gospel of Mark, it seemed that the banquet was in Jesus’ house. What is
important here is the insistence on the communion of Jesus with sinners, around
the table, which was a forbidden thing.
Jesus did not come for the just, but for sinners. This
gesture of Jesus causes great anger among the religious authorities. It was
forbidden to sit at table with tax collectors and sinners, because to sit at
table with someone meant to treat him as a brother! With His way of doing
things, Jesus was accepting the excluded and was treating them as brothers of
the same family of God. Instead of speaking directly with Jesus, the of the
Pharisees speak with the disciples: Why do You eat and drink with tax
collectors and sinners? Jesus answers: It is not those that are well who need the
doctor; I have come to call not the upright, but sinners, to repentance! His
consciousness of His mission helps Jesus to find the response to indicate the
way for the announcement of the Good News of God. He has come to unite the
dispersed people, to reintegrate those who are excluded, to reveal that God is
not a severe judge who condemns and expels, but rather He is Father who accepts
and embraces.
Personal Questions
•
Jesus accepts and includes people. What is my
way of accepting people?
•
Jesus’ gesture reveals the experience that He
has of God the Father. What is the image of God which I bear and express to
others through my behavior?
Concluding Prayer
Listen to me, Yahweh, answer me, for I am poor and needy.
Guard me, for I am faithful, save Your servant who relies on
You. (Ps 86: 1-2)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét