It's Still the Jubilee Year!
“Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.” (Isaiah 58.5-8)
I’ve always been skeptical of Catholic self-flagellation during Lent: too often, it becomes a site of competition, disciplined strength, and a certain war-like self control. We compete with each other to see who can do the most to please God — sometimes, even, who can seem the saddest.
But even during Lent, God is not asking us to be sad for the sake of it. God does not demand our tears or self-flagellation. Put another way: even during Lent, Christianity is not about rejecting bodily joy in the name of martial discipline. The whole world of bodily goods is created by God, and to be received with glad thanksgiving.
Isaiah’s inversion here is remarkable: to fast is not even to go without bread. To fast is to share your bread. To fast is not to yoke yourself. It is to break every yoke. To fast is not to bind ourselves: it is to release those bound unjustly.
This demands real work. We are so far from living in a world without yokes that I doubt we can even imagine the gravity of the task. It’s one far more demanding than a social media fast — though I’ll be doing that too, of course.
Break every yoke. (1.8 million Americans are imprisoned over 70% for non-violent crimes.)
Share your bread with the hungry. (One in eight Connecticut residents are food insecure.)
Shelter the homeless. (There are more than 633 unhoused people in New Haven.)
We celebrate this Lent in the midst of a Jubilee year — and no, the Jubilee doesn’t end on Ash Wednesday. How do we square these two moments in the cyclical life of our Church? Isn’t Lent somber? Aren’t jubilees joyful?
To venture at an answer, I’d turn to Leviticus, which lays out a radical vision for the Jubilee : “On the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” At the Jubilee, debts would be forgiven, slaves would be set free, and the cycle of poverty would finally be broken. Sound familiar?
Notice something: the Jubilee begins on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) — a somber day of fasting. The fast and the Jubilee are not opposed to each other; indeed, we atone for our sins when we do right by our neighbour. Especially this year, would that our Lents were also Jubilees, brim to bursting with neighbourly love.
