Homily for Tuesday
1st Week of Lent
Feb. 24, 2026
Is 55: 10-11
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence,
N.R.
Creation of the sun, moon, stars, and planets
(Sistine Chapel)
“Thus says the
Lord: My word … shall achieve the end
for which I sent it” (Is 55: 10-11).
The Lord has spoken a
word of redemption to Israel in ch. 40-55 of Isaiah, the prophecies of
so-called 2d Isaiah. Israel shall be set
free from exile in Babylon and return home to Judah. You can be sure of it because what God speaks
unfailingly happens. “In the beginning
God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light” (Gen 1:1,3), and so he
continued thruout the history of our salvation.
The 2 verses that
precede today’s reading contrast God’s thoughts with our human thoughts, God’s
ways with our ways. You know the
passage: “My thoughts aren’t your
thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. As
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and
my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:8-9).
Our ways aren’t always ways of salvation, but too often of resentment or
malice, nor our words words of healing. Human
words often aren’t true, human promises often aren’t kept—not only by
politicians but often enuf by us, too.
But God means what he
says.
And right before
those 2 contrasting verses, the Lord urged the wicked and the scoundrel to
forsake their ways and their thoughts, that he might have mercy on them, for
God’s abundant in mercy. That’s God’s
word for Lent, God’s effective word, his word that achieves his purpose.
He shall achieve the
end for which he sent forth his Word, the Word that became flesh and dwelt
among us, that he might save us from our sins and give us eternal life (cf.
John 3:16). So we’re filled with
hope. This is God’s will, and what he
wills, he does.
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