Gospel of February 19, 2021 with the comment of Pope Francis

READING OF THE DAY From the book of the prophet Isaiah Is 58,1-9a
Thus says the Lord: «Cry out loud, have no regard; raise your voice like the horn, declare their sins to my people, to the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me every day, they yearn to know my ways, like a people who practice justice and have not abandoned the right of their God; they ask me for just judgments, they crave God's closeness: “Why fast, if you don't see it, mortify us, if you don't know it?”. Behold, on the day of your fast you take care of your business, harass all your workers. Behold, you are fasting between quarrels and quarrels and striking with iniquitous fists. No longer fast as you do today, so as to make your noise heard above. Is it like this the fast I crave, the day man mortifies himself? To bend one's head like a reed, to use sackcloth and ashes for bed, perhaps this would you like to call fasting and a day pleasing to the Lord? Isn't this rather the fast I want: to loosen the unjust chains, to remove the bonds of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and to break every yoke? Does it not consist in sharing bread with the hungry, in introducing the poor, homeless into the house, in dressing one you see naked, without neglecting your relatives? Then your light will rise like the dawn, your wound will soon heal. Your righteousness will walk before you, the glory of the Lord will follow you. Then you will invoke and the Lord will answer you, you will beg for help and he will say: “Here I am!” ».

GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to Matthew Mt 9,14: 15-XNUMX
At that time, John's disciples came to Jesus and said to him, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast many times, while your disciples do not fast?"
And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is with them?" But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. "

WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
This taking away the ability to understand God's revelation, to understand God's heart, to understand God's salvation - the key to knowledge - we can say is a grave forgetfulness. The gratuity of salvation is forgotten; the closeness of God is forgotten and God's mercy is forgotten. For them God is the one who made the law. And this is not the God of revelation. The God of revelation is God who began to walk with us from Abraham to Jesus Christ, God who walks with his people. And when you lose this close relationship with the Lord, you fall into this dull mentality that believes in the self-sufficiency of salvation with the fulfillment of the law. (Santa marta, 19 October 2017)