ASH WEDNESDAY AND RUTILIO GRANDE, S.J
DEAR FRIENDS:.
as In her liturgical wisdom, the Church offers us the text of Isaiah 58: 1-12, as the First Reading of the Office of Reading for Ash Wednesday (vv. 1-10), and as the First Reading for the Mass of Friday, after Ash Wednesday (vv. 1-12). It is an ever-wsprovocative, compelling, subversive reading:
“Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers. Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high! Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?”
“This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: 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. Then your light shall beak like the dawn, and your wound shall be quickly healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!”
“If you remove the yoke from among you, the accusing finger, and malicious speech, if you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday” (Isaiah 58: 1-10).
On February 13, 1977, in his last homily, preached at Apopa, Rutilio Grande, S.J., the Salvadorean martyr, gave us a deep, mystical and disturbing exegesis of Is 58: 1-10:
“Woe to you, hypocrites, who call yourselves Catholics but inside are full of filth and evil! You Cains crucify the Lord who walks with the name of Manuel, with the name of Luis, with the name of Chabela, with the name of the humble worker in the field!”
“ ‘Our people hunger for the True God and hunger for bread’ was rightly said in our archdiocesan pastoral week. So, no privileged minority in our country has a Christian reason for being, except to work for the large majority that makes up the Salvadorean people”
Twenty seven days after preaching this homily, on March 12, Rutilio Grande and two companions were assassinated by death squads – three years and eighteen days before the assassination of his friend, Archbishop Oscar Romero.
The thundering echoes of the text of the Third Isaiah (most likely a post-exilic writing) and the prophetic, subversive voice of Rutilio Grande meet each other across the centuries, clamoring for justice, mercy and compassion for the all the crucified victims of history. Their voices have been echoed by hosts of others who have engaged in a passionate, dangerous (very dangerous!), vulnerable, joyful and liberating communion with the Crucified and Risen Christ, whose face is etched in those oppressed and the discarded by our opulent societies.
Lent, as it has been said, and continues to be said, is a journey of conversion – Conversion from what to what? The texts of the prophet of Israel, and the homily of the prophet and martyr of El Salvador draw, with delicate and bloody contours, the identity of true conversion: to learn to see reality through the eyes of the Crucified.
Oremus pro invicem