Homily for Tuesday of Holy Week

Homily for Tuesday of Holy Week

April 7, 2020

Is 49: 1-6
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Hear me, O islands, listen, O distant peoples” (Is 49: 1).

Today’s the 3d day in a row on which our OT reading is one of the Servant Songs from Isaiah.  We’ll hear the 4th on Friday.

(National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington)

There’s no universal agreement on the identity of this Servant of the Lord.  Just in today’s passage, he might be identified as the entire people of Israel, especially when Israel appears to be addressed:  “You are my servant, Israel, thru whom I show my glory” (49:3).

On the other hand, he seems to be an individual, a prophet of some kind.  E.g., “The Lord … formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him” (49:5).

There’s no reason why the Servant of the Lord can’t be “both-and,” which happens in a lot of Christian theology—both the whole of Israel, and an individual person.  He’s the entire nation called by God to be a testimony to the “distant peoples,” “concealed in the shadow of God’s arm” (49:2) but destined to be drawn out and fired like an arrow to get everyone’s attention in the Lord’s good time, Israel as the Lord’s glorious people among all the nations, “a light to the nations, that his salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (49:6).

At the same time the Servant is a single individual who embodies the prophetic role of Israel, perhaps even this prophet whom we know only as Second Isaiah, preparing exiled Jacob for their return to Jerusalem.

There is universal Christian agreement that our Lord Jesus is the Servant of the Lord, the one “called from birth, from [his] mother’s womb” (49:1) to reveal the glory of God (49:3), to gather Israel to the Lord (49:5), even the new Israel that includes distant peoples, to raise up new tribes for Jacob and to extend the Lord’s salvation “to the ends of the earth” (cf. 49:6).

We know, as well, that Christ’s Church now stands in his stead as the Lord’s Servant, bringing the light of the Gospel to the nations (as the central document of Vatican II says in its 1st 2 words:  Lumen gentium.  God called the Church, formed it as his servant from eternity, brought it to birth in the womb of the baptismal font.  Thus, by Christ the Lord’s commission, we too are the Servant of the Lord, chosen from birth, called and missioned to enlighten the nations with the Gospel, especially the nation of the young, even the so-called “digital continent,” to be messengers of mercy gathering God’s children to him again.

At times we may “think we’ve toiled in vain” (49:4), frustrated that our reach is so short—shorter still in this time of restriction; or, Lord knows, not always appreciated even in normal times.  But with the courage of the Lord’s Servant we keep striving, knowing that God will provide a recompense (49:4) even if our success here below is “concealed in the shadow of his arm” (49:2).