February 16th, 2024
Your light shall break forth like the dawn.
That was on my Christmas card this year and it’s in the first Mass reading today.
It’s an evocative image, but it’s incomplete out of context.
The prophet Isaiah responds to his community’s complaints that their fasting has not been acceptable to God with a rebuke; they have gone about their business and made their penances someone else’s problem. This is not the fasting that God desires from them.
It’s not the fasting God desires from me, either.
What does God want?
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.
In this season of repentance we beg God, whose very name is Mercy, to hear us and have mercy on us. God asks that in response, we are generous with what we have been given.
Today’s readings are a potent reminder to me that God delights not in my most excellently chosen and perfectly executed Lenten practices (though Lenten practices are important and good!) but that my heart is contrite and humbled, made of flesh and available to transformation.
The heart of the artist is available; the gaze of the artist is transformative.
Perhaps God is calling me this Lent not (just) to be disciplined and persevering in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but to be supple, pierceable, and moveable.
Then, when in the pattern of the Creator I am lavish and open, my light will break forth like the dawn; the light of the Paschal candle, the light from the empty tomb.
But there is suffering and death on the road before that.
Let us begin.
Anna Wulfekuhle is a multidisciplinary creator and collaborator. Learn more about her here.