18 January 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8
Today begins the Three Days' Fast, the Rogation of the Ninevites, born in a time of plague when the Church of the East fasted and begged God for mercy. The first reading gives us the words for such a prayer. A people back from exile looks at its ruins and cries: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”. They do not pretend: “all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf”. Yet they hold on to one truth: “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter”, and they plead: “do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.” Habakkuk adds the faith that keeps praying even when the fields are bare: “Though the fig tree does not blossom… yet I will rejoice in the LORD”.
Paul urges that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone”, even for kings and rulers, because God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” A rogation is exactly this: the Church praying for the whole world. But Jesus warns that a prayer for mercy is empty if we refuse mercy. The servant released from a debt of ten thousand talents seizes a fellow servant by the throat over a hundred denarii. The master asks: “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” And Jesus says the Father will deal so with us “if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Our fast begins with forgiveness. Today the Unity Octave also begins: Christians who ask God not to remember their sins must learn to forgive one another.
Theme: “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.”
The fast of the Ninevites begins: prayer for mercy, prayer for all, mercy to one another.
“Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8
“But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7
Apply: Keep the three days' fast as fully as you can, as clay in God's hands.
“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Jeremiah 29:7
“This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3–4
Apply: Pray each day of the fast for our country and its leaders.
“Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.” Sirach 28:2
“Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” Matthew 18:33
Apply: Forgive one person from your heart before the fast ends.
The rogation of the Ninevites is a prayer for mercy for all.
We who ask mercy must give mercy.
Take-home resolution: Make a good confession during the three days, and forgive before you confess.
Dear friends, today we begin the Three Days' Fast, the fast of the Ninevites. Our Church of the East first kept it in a time of plague, when the people fasted and begged God for mercy. The first reading gives us the words for that prayer.
A people back from exile looks at its ruins and cries: O that you would tear open the heavens and come down! They confess: all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth; we all fade like a leaf. Then comes the turn: yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter (Isaiah 64:8). A broken pot can be remade if it stays in the potter's hands.
Habakkuk teaches us to rejoice in God even when the fig tree does not blossom and the fields yield no food. And Paul asks that prayers be made for everyone, for kings and all in authority, because God desires everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). A rogation is the whole Church praying for the whole world.
But Jesus tells a hard parable. A servant is forgiven a debt he could never pay, then throttles a fellow servant over a small sum. The master asks: should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you? (Matthew 18:33). If we ask God not to remember our sins, we cannot keep a list of the sins of others.
Today the Church Unity Octave also begins. Let our fast begin with forgiveness: in our families, in our parishes, and among divided Christians. Amen.
Children, a king forgave a man a huge debt, but the man would not forgive his friend a tiny one. Jesus wants us to forgive like God forgives us. Is there someone you need to say sorry to, or forgive, today?
Merciful Father, we are the clay and you are our potter. As we begin the fast of the Ninevites, do not remember our iniquity forever. Teach us to pray for everyone, and give us hearts that forgive as we have been forgiven. Make all Christians one in your mercy. Amen.
Today the Three Days' Fast begins, and the first voice we hear is a people crying to God from the ruins: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”. Habakkuk answers with trust when everything has failed: “yet I will rejoice in the Lord”. The First Letter to Timothy turns the fast outward, into prayer for everyone, because God “desires everyone to be saved”. Then Jesus tells us the condition of all mercy: a forgiven servant must forgive. So the fast's first lesson is this: we ask for mercy, we pray for all, and we let go of what others owe us.
Setting.
Isaiah 63:7–64:12 is a long prayer of lament. Many scholars place these last chapters of Isaiah (56–66) after the return from exile, when Jerusalem was still poor and the Temple lay in ruins or had only just begun to rise; the verses after our reading speak of the “holy and beautiful house” burned by fire (64:11). In the Hebrew Bible the numbering differs by one verse, for 64:1 here is 63:19 there.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence” (64:1)
The people recall Sinai and beg for it to happen again. This is the longing of the fast: not for a change in our circumstances first, but for God's own coming.
“But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.” (64:5)
The Hebrew of this verse is notoriously difficult, and translations differ: the POC reads differently here. The prayer struggles honestly with how God's silence and our sin are bound up together.
“We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (64:6)
“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (64:8)
“Yet” is the hinge of the whole prayer. Nothing has changed in the facts. What has changed is whom the people are looking at.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that Israel called God “Father” as Creator of the world and as the one who made the covenant with his people (CCC 238). True conversion begins as a turning of the heart, and it is God who gives us the strength to begin anew (CCC 1431–1432). St Paul takes up the language of v. 4 when he speaks of what “no eye has seen” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Setting.
Habakkuk is usually dated in the late seventh century BC, when Babylon was rising. In chapter 1 he argues with God about injustice, and in 2:4 he receives the great word, “the righteous live by their faith”. Chapter 3 is a psalm, with its own title and musical notes (3:1, 19). It pictures God coming as a warrior to save his people, as at the Exodus.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,” (3:17)
Every source of food in an ancient farm is named, and every one has failed. This is what it would be like when a plague or an invasion leaves nothing.
“yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.” (3:18)
Joy here is not a feeling caused by events. It is a decision about God. Mary's song in Luke 1:47 has a similar ring.
“God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.” (3:19)
The image also appears in Psalm 18:33. The man who was trembling (3:16) is now walking on the heights, though nothing around him has changed.
How the Church reads it.
St Augustine, in the City of God (18.32), reads this song as a prophecy of Christ (in substance). The Catechism says that hope keeps us from discouragement and sustains us in times of abandonment (CCC 1818), and that it gives joy even under trial (CCC 1820).
Setting.
The letter gives instructions for Church life. Its tradition names Paul as author; many scholars today think that it comes from a disciple writing in his name, while others keep to Pauline authorship. The Church receives it as inspired Scripture in either case. Christians were a small minority under pagan rulers, and the “kings” they are told to pray for could also be those who persecuted them.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone,” (2:1)
“For everyone” is repeated in this passage: for everyone, everyone saved, a ransom for all. No one is outside the Church's prayer.
“who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2:4)
This is one of the clearest verses about God's will for humanity. The fast of the Ninevites, a people outside Israel, shows the same will.
“For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human,” (2:5)
The word “human” is emphasized. He mediates from our side of the gap, as one of us.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that Christ is the “one mediator” (CCC 618), that the Church's mission comes from God's will that all be saved (CCC 851), and that Christian intercession has no boundaries, and reaches even those who do us harm (CCC 2635–2636). The Second Vatican Council explains that Mary's and the saints' prayer does not take away from Christ's one mediation: it depends on it and shows its power (Lumen Gentium 60).
Setting.
Matthew 18 is the discourse on life in the Church. Peter has just asked how many times he must forgive: as many as seven times? Jesus answers, “seventy-seven times” (18:21–22). He then tells this parable, found only in Matthew, so that Peter may understand why.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.” (18:27)
“But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii;” (18:28)
A hundred denarii is about three months' wages, a real debt and not a small matter for a poor man. Compared with the first, it is almost nothing. His words are the same words he used before the king (vv. 26 and 29), and that is the point.
“Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” (18:33)
Here is the whole parable in one question. The “as” is the same as in the Lord's Prayer: “as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).
“So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (18:35)
This is a parable's strong warning, and not a description of God's temperament. It says that a heart closed to a brother is closed to the mercy it needs.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that this parable crowns the Lord's teaching on the communion of the Church, and that it is “in the depths of the heart” that everything is bound and loosed (CCC 2843). It adds that it is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offence, but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion (CCC 2843). God's mercy cannot reach a heart that has hardened itself against others (CCC 2840).
Why do we fast on these three days?
The Three Days' Fast is the Church's way of doing what the people of Nineveh did: all together, in sackcloth of the heart, turning from evil and asking for mercy. In the East Syriac tradition it comes from a plague in Persia in the sixth century that ended after the people fasted and prayed. It is a preparation for the Great Fast and a share in the Church's penance (CCC 1438).
If only Christ is mediator, why do we ask the saints to pray for us?
Because the one mediation of Christ does not shut out our sharing in it. Asking a saint to pray is like asking a friend, as Paul asks the churches to pray for him (Romans 15:30). All intercession flows from Christ and leads back to him (Lumen Gentium 60, 62; CCC 970).
Must I forgive someone who keeps hurting me, and stay in harm's way?
Forgiving does not mean approving what was done, nor does it remove the need for justice or for protection. A person may and sometimes must leave danger, and still pray for the one who did the harm. Forgiveness is a work of grace that often takes time. A good priest or counsellor can help.
Moonnu Nombu, the Rogation of the Ninevites, is one of the most treasured fasts of the Thomas Christians. Our churches fill for it, and Kuravilangad draws great crowds of pilgrims. Keep it as the Church asks and according to your own diocese's norms, and let it go together with prayer and works of mercy. Today is also the first day of the Church Unity Octave. The word about prayer “for everyone” applies very directly: we pray for our Christian brothers and sisters of other Churches, for the leaders of nations, and for those who suffer in many lands and for those who have wronged them.