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Friday After Ash
Wednesday • Day of Abstinence • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II
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✝️ Today's Mass Readings
First Reading: Isaiah 58:1-9a
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 18-19
Gospel: Matthew 9:14-15
📖 The Gospel - Matthew 9:14-15
The disciples of John
approach Jesus with a genuine question, why don't your disciples fast? And
Jesus answers them with one of the most tender images in all of Scripture. He
calls Himself the Bridegroom. And He says, you don't mourn when the bridegroom
is right there with you at the wedding feast.
🙏 Gospel Reflection
Isaiah hits hard
today. God speaks through the prophet with a kind of holy frustration, you fast, but you keep on oppressing your workers. You bow your heads and lie in sackcloth,
but your hearts haven't moved an inch. He's not attacking fasting. He's
attacking the performance of fasting without the transformation it's supposed
to produce.
Real fasting, God says through Isaiah, looks
like this, loosing the chains of injustice, setting the oppressed free, sharing
your bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and
not turning away from your own family in need. That is the fast that pleases
God. That's the fast that actually does something in the world.
Here's what strikes me about today's Gospel.
Jesus doesn't defend fasting in the way we might expect. He simply says, when
the bridegroom is taken away, then they will fast. And friends, that is exactly
where we are in Lent. We are the people who know that the bridegroom was taken.
We know what Friday means. We know what the cross cost. And so, our fasting
today, whether it's from meat, from complaining, from a habit, from an extra
hour of television, is not a performance. It is a love letter. It says, I remember
what You did for me. I choose to feel a little of the hunger you felt for me.
Let your fast today be real and let it be
love.
💭 Reflection Question
Is there a fast God
might be calling you to this Lent that goes beyond food, perhaps fasting from a
word you say too often, a comfort you cling to too tightly, or a distraction
that keeps you from truly seeing the people around you?
📿 Today's Rosary - The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today's Focus
Mystery: The Scourging at the
Pillar
Isaiah's true fast is
about releasing the suffering of others, and in this mystery, we contemplate
Christ absorbing suffering into His own body out of pure love. As you pray each
bead today, let this mystery remind you that every genuine sacrifice you make
this Lent is united to His.
🌹 Our Lady of Fatima - Today's Connection
Our Lady asked the
children at Fatima to make sacrifices for sinners, small, hidden, daily acts of
love offered freely to God. Little Jacinta and Francisco embraced this
wholeheartedly, giving their lunches to poor children, kneeling in prayer on
rocky ground. They understood what Isaiah is saying today that the fast
pleasing to God is the one that costs you something real and is done for the love
of another. As you observe abstinence today, offer it simply and from the
heart, the way those shepherd children did.
🕊️ Closing Prayer
Lord, teach me to
fast with a free and generous heart, not to be seen, but to love. Unite my
small sacrifices today to Yours on the cross. And may what I give up make a
little more room in me for You. Amen.
©2026 James Dacey,
Jr. OFS
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Want to know more
about My Spiritual Journey?
Read My Story at: An Invitation To Read My Story - My Testimony
