Fr Peter Helman

“…if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”
--- Isaiah 58:10 (NRSV)

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Dear beloved,

The reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah this morning, one of my very favorite Isaian oracles, happens also to be an alternate reading appointed in our Eucharistic lectionary for Ash Wednesday, the first of 40 days of Lent that lead to the celebration of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection on Easter.

The timing for this reading is right because we come to Ash Wednesday next week (Feb. 17). And no doubt you’ll have noticed that for several weeks now already, the readings we’ve had each Sunday and throughout the week for the Daily Office have steadily drawn our devotion, in one way or another, towards the heart of the Lenten pilgrimage. We’re being put in mind of the appeal of God to live holy lives shaped by prayer and the practice of lovingkindness.

As we’ll soon undertake the observance of a holy Lent, Isaiah reminds us today, as he did the people of Israel all those many years ago, that if we are God’s children, we must love God not in word and speech but in deed and truth. Which is more pointedly to ask, what is prayer good for if not to produce within us the fruit of love, lives that are transformed by grace and freely and joyfully given in service to the needs of others?

Love, Isaiah says, makes prayer possible. And true prayer perfects love. We will know God when love takes root deep within us and like a well of living water springs up into everlasting life.

During the Lenten season we will journey into the wilderness where we are called by God. With the disciplines of self-examination, repentance, prayer, fasting, and self-denial, we will set apart our hearts to God, to hear the voice of Jesus who is the source of life in the wilderness. He calls to us to loose the bonds of injustice; to undo the thongs of the yoke; to let the oppressed go free; share your bread with the hungry; bring the homeless poor into your house; cloth the naked; satisfy the needs of the afflicted.

How might you challenge yourself today to show forth the love of God to others in your family, your community, and around the world?


Yours in Christ,
Peter+