Gospel of March 8, 2019

Book of Isaiah 58,1-9a.
Thus says the Lord: Cry out loud, have no regard; like a trumpet, raise your voice; he declares his crimes to my people, his sins to the house of Jacob.
They seek me out every day, yearning 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 the closeness of God:
"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 affairs, torment all your workers.
Here, you fast between quarrels and altercations and hitting with unfair punches. Do not fast any more as you do today, so that your noise can be heard high up.
Is it like this fasting that I crave, the day man humiliates himself? To bend one's head like a rush, to use sackcloth and ashes for the bed, perhaps you would like to call fasting and a day pleasing to the Lord?
Isn't this the fast I want: to untie the unfair chains, to remove the bonds of the yoke, to put the oppressed free and to break every yoke?
Does it not consist in dividing bread with the hungry, in introducing the poor, homeless into the house, in dressing someone you see naked, without taking your eyes off those of your flesh?
Then your light will rise like the dawn, your wound will heal soon. Your righteousness will walk before you, the glory of the Lord will follow you.
Then you will call on him and the Lord will answer you; you will beg for help and he will say, "Here I am!"

Salmi 51(50),3-4.5-6ab.18-19.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your mercy;
in your great goodness erase my sin.
Wash me from all my faults,
cleanse me of my sin.

I recognize my guilt,
my sin is always before me.
Against you, against you alone I have sinned,
what is bad in your eyes, I did it.

You don't like sacrifice
and if I offer burnt offerings, you don't accept them.
A contrite spirit is sacrifice to God,
a heart broken and humiliated, God, you do not despise.

From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew 9,14-15.
At that time, John's disciples came to Jesus and said to him, "Why, while we and the Pharisees fast, your disciples do not fast?"
And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests be in mourning 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.