7 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4
With this Sunday the Church enters the Great Fast, the fifty days that lead to the Pasha of the Lord. The first reading shows what a fast is for. Moses goes up Sinai to receive the covenant again after Israel's sin with the golden calf: “He was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” When he comes down, “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” The people are afraid to come near, so he covers his face with a veil, taking it off only when he goes in to speak with the LORD. Fasting is not first of all about food. It is about being with God so long and so closely that something of his light begins to shine in us, often without our knowing it.
Isaiah warns that a fast can also be empty. The people complain: “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” God answers: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight.” Then he describes the fast he wants: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” Only then: “your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.” Paul gives the same programme in the language of clothing. We are to put away “your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” The Great Fast is a change of clothes: the old self off, Christ on.
In the Gospel, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.” The tempter comes three times. Turn stones into bread: use your power for your own hunger. Throw yourself down from the temple: force God to prove his care with a spectacle. Fall down and worship me: take the kingdoms of the world by the easy road. Each time Jesus answers with the word of God from Deuteronomy, the book of Israel's forty years in the desert: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”; “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”; “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Where Adam failed in the garden and Israel failed in the desert, the new Adam stands firm, and “suddenly angels came and waited on him.” We do not fast alone. We fast in him, and his victory becomes ours. So tonight, at Pethurtha, let families forgive one another, and tomorrow let us begin the fifty days with prayer, fasting and almsgiving, so that our faces too may shine with the light of the Risen One at Easter.
Theme: “One does not live by bread alone.”
The Great Fast begins: forty days with God, the fast God chooses, victory over temptation, and the new self.
“He was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” Exodus 34:28
“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18
Apply: Set a fixed time of prayer every day of the Great Fast.
“He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” Deuteronomy 8:3
“But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”” Matthew 4:4
Apply: Read one chapter of a Gospel every day of the Great Fast.
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” Isaiah 58:6–7
“How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” 1 John 3:17
Apply: Keep a box for what you save by fasting, and give it to the poor at Easter.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10
“You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:22–24
Apply: Name one habit of the old self to put away during these fifty days.
The Great Fast is time with God, a fast of justice and sharing, and a change of clothes.
In Christ who overcame the tempter, we too can overcome.
Take-home resolution: Be reconciled tonight at Pethurtha, and begin the fast tomorrow with prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
Dear brothers and sisters, today we enter the Great Fast. Moses was with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water (Exodus 34:28). When he came down, his face shone because he had been talking with God, and he did not even know it.
This is the purpose of the fast: not first to lose weight or to suffer, but to be with God, so that his light may begin to shine in us.
Isaiah warns that a fast can be empty. People fasted and quarrelled, fasted and oppressed their workers. God says: is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to share your bread with the hungry? (Isaiah 58:6–7). Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.
Paul tells us to put away the old self and clothe ourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God (Ephesians 4:22–24). The Great Fast is a change of clothes: the old self off, Christ on.
In the Gospel Jesus fasts forty days and is tempted three times: bread, a spectacle, power. Each time he answers with the word of God: one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Where Adam and Israel failed, he stands firm.
We fast in him, and his victory is ours. Tonight, at Pethurtha, let us forgive one another at home. From tomorrow let us pray more, eat less, give more, and feed on God's word, so that at Easter our faces too may shine. Amen.
Children, Jesus did not eat for forty days, and when the devil tempted him, he said: God's word is more important than bread!
In the Great Fast, give up one sweet thing and say one extra prayer each day.
Lord Jesus Christ, you fasted forty days in the wilderness and overcame the tempter by the word of God. As we begin the Great Fast, give us hunger for every word that comes from the mouth of God; let our fasting loose the bonds of injustice and share our bread with the hungry; strip away our old self and clothe us with the new; and keep us faithful to worship the Father alone, so that at your Resurrection our faces may shine with your light. Glory to you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen.
With this Sunday the Church stands at the door of the Great Fast, the fifty days that lead to the Pasha of the Lord. The four readings together explain what a fast is for. Moses spends forty days with God, and his face shines without his knowing it. Isaiah warns that a fast without justice is empty, and he describes the fast God actually wants. Paul speaks of taking off an old self like a garment and clothing ourselves with a new one. In the Gospel Jesus, led by the Spirit, fasts forty days in the wilderness and overcomes the tempter with the word of God. The readings run from a shining face to a shared loaf, to a new garment, to victory, and their key words are presence, justice, renewal and the word.
Setting.
The people have made the golden calf (Exodus 32), Moses has broken the first tablets (32:19), and he has pleaded for them (32:30–32; 33:12–17). In chapter 34 God renews the covenant and gives new tablets. Today’s reading is the close of that story. After the worst sin of the desert, God is still speaking with his people, and his glory now shows on the face of the mediator.
Deuteronomy tells of the same forty days without food and water (Deuteronomy 9:9, 18). They are not a work Moses does to win something from God. He is so taken up with God that he does not eat.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“He was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water.” (34:28)
Forty recalls the time of testing and meeting God. Elijah walks forty days to the same mountain (1 Kings 19:8), and Jesus fasts forty days in today’s Gospel.
“Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” (34:29)
This is the heart of the reading. He did not know. Holiness that knows it is shining is usually doing something else. The fast has not made Moses admire himself. It has left something on his face that others can see.
“When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face;” (34:33)
Being close to God does not separate Moses from the people. He comes back, calls them near (v. 31), and hands on the word. What he received on the mountain was for them.
How the Church reads it.
St Paul reads this passage and says, “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image” (2 Corinthians 3:18). On the mountain of the Transfiguration Jesus’ “face shone like the sun” (Matthew 17:2), with Moses and Elijah beside him. The Catechism notes that Moses drew strength and determination for his intercession from this intimacy with God (CCC 2577). The Great Fast aims at this sort of nearness.
Setting.
Many scholars attribute chapters 56–66 of Isaiah to the period after the return from exile (from 538 BC), when the community was struggling to rebuild. It was keeping fasts of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem (Zechariah 7:5). People were devout, yet social wrongs continued, and they wondered why God did not respond.
The chapter is a prophetic challenge from within Israel’s own faith. Israel’s prophets, whose words Israel preserved, spoke like this to their own people. Jesus stands in this line (Matthew 6:16–18), and the same challenge is addressed to the Church today.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
““Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.” (58:3)
They treat fasting as a way to get God’s attention. The answer turns their gaze from heaven to the people who work for them.
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (58:6)
Four verbs of release. The yoke is an image of someone’s labour being taken from him by force. A fast that leaves another person’s burden in place is not yet the fast God wants.
“Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (58:7)
“Your bread”: what I do not eat in the fast is meant for someone. Note that this is close to the list in Matthew 25:35–36.
“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;” (58:8)
The one who looks after others’ wounds finds his own healed. God is no longer asked to “see”: now, “you shall call, and the Lord will answer” (v. 9).
“if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.” (58:10)
The same word that promised light in v. 8 closes the reading. Light is what the fast is for, and it comes through the hungry.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms of penance: fasting, prayer and almsgiving (CCC 1434), and it names the seasons and days of penance, among them Lent, as intense moments of the Church’s penitential practice (CCC 1438). St Peter Chrysologus says that fasting is the soul of prayer, and mercy is the lifeblood of fasting; these three are one, and cannot be separated (in substance). St John Chrysostom asks those who fast to prove it by their works, and to let eyes, ears, hands and feet fast too (in substance).
Setting.
The letter presents itself as written by Paul in prison (3:1; 4:1). Many hold that it is his; many scholars think that it was composed by a disciple who gathered his teaching. Chapters 1–3 tell what God has done in Christ. From 4:1 on, the letter says how those who have received it are to live.
The readers are Gentile converts, and when the letter says “as the Gentiles live” it is telling them not to go back to the life they had left. It is not a judgment on every person outside the Church, or on our neighbours of other faiths. The Church “rejects nothing that is true and holy” in other religions (Nostra Aetate 2).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“That is not the way you learned Christ!” (4:20)
An unusual phrase. Paul does not say “learned about Christ”, as one learns a subject. To become a Christian is to learn a person, and that lesson shows in how a person lives.
“You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts,” (4:22)
“Old self” is literally “old man”, as the POC keeps it. It is not one bad habit but a whole way of being. Its desires promise much and deceive.
“and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,” (4:23)
The Great Fast is not only about the stomach. What changes is the way we see.
“and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (4:24)
“Created” speaks of what only God can do, as in Genesis 1. Our new self is not self-improvement. It is a new creation, and it is given. We are asked to put it on.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that the white garment of baptism signifies that the baptized person has “put on Christ” (CCC 1243), and it cites this verse when it says that the Christian must strive to put off the old man and put on the new man (CCC 1473). St Leo the Great, preaching at the start of the fast, says that what a Christian should be doing at all times should now be done with greater care and devotion (in substance). The Second Vatican Council names the recalling of baptism, or the preparation for it, and penance as the two marks of this season (Sacrosanctum Concilium 109).
Setting.
Immediately before this the voice from heaven has said, “This is my Son, the Beloved” (3:17). The devil’s first words question exactly that: “If you are the Son of God”. Jesus is led into the wilderness not by the devil but by the Spirit.
The scene recalls Israel in the desert, God’s “firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1, which Matthew quotes in 2:15). Israel was tested forty years, and Deuteronomy 8:2 says that God led the people so as to humble and test them. Jesus answers all three temptations from Deuteronomy 6–8, the chapters in which Moses reflects on that time. He relives his people’s story from within, as one of them, and remains faithful. Matthew’s order ends on a mountain; Luke’s ends at the Temple (Luke 4:1–13).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (4:1)
The same Spirit who came upon him at the baptism leads him here. Temptation is not a sign that God has gone away.
“He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.” (4:2)
Matthew adds “and forty nights”, as with Moses (Exodus 34:28). He does not hide the hunger. The Son of God is truly human, and he is tempted at the point of his real need.
““It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”” (4:4)
Bread is not the problem, and Jesus will soon multiply it (14:13–21). The temptation is to use his power for himself. He will live on what his Father gives, as Israel lived on manna.
““Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”” (4:7)
Forcing God’s hand with a spectacle is not trust but its opposite. The devil quotes Psalm 91 and misses its real point, which is quiet confidence.
““Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”” (4:10)
The tempter offers all the kingdoms for one act of worship. On a mountain at the end of the Gospel Jesus will say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (28:18). It comes from the Father and by way of the Cross.
“Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” (4:11)
The verb is “served”, or “ministered”. The very help the devil tried to demand in v. 6 is now given when it is not demanded.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism explains that Jesus is the new Adam who remained faithful where the first Adam gave in to temptation, and that he fulfils Israel’s vocation perfectly (CCC 539). “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert” (CCC 540). It teaches that this victory is won through prayer (CCC 2849). St Augustine says in his commentary on the Psalms that Christ made us one with him when he was tempted, so that in him you were tempted and in him you overcome (in substance).
Why is Moses shown with horns in some paintings and statues?
The Hebrew verb for “shone” in Exodus 34:29 is related to the word for “horn”, and St Jerome’s Latin translated it “horned”. Artists followed this. The Scripture itself speaks of light. This is an example of why the Church encourages study of the original languages (Dei Verbum 22).
How could Jesus be tempted, if he was without sin?
Temptation is not sin. Jesus was truly tempted from outside by the devil, and he truly felt hunger, yet he never consented. The Letter to the Hebrews says that he “in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). This is why he can help us when we are tempted (CCC 540).
Is the Great Fast only about food?
Fasting from food is a real part of it, and the Church has rules for it that each eparchy gives; the sick, the very old and small children are not asked to fast in the same way. But Isaiah 58 and the Fathers insist that the fast must go together with prayer, almsgiving, reconciliation and justice. A fast that leaves the heart unchanged has missed its purpose.
In the Syro-Malabar Church the Great Fast, Sauma Ramba, is the fast of fifty days, counted from this Sunday; the fasting begins tomorrow, Monday, a day of fasting and abstinence on which ashes are blessed in many parishes. Tonight is Pethurtha, the threshold of the fast, kept in our families as a time of reconciliation and of a simple last festive meal. Isaiah’s “your own kin” (58:7) has a sharp point this evening: the fast begins well in a house where old quarrels have been forgiven. At the Holy Qurbana today we pray with Christ, who overcomes in the wilderness and who feeds us with “every word that comes from the mouth of God” and with his own Body and Blood.