8 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:24
The Great Fast has begun. Yesterday was Pethurtha Sunday; the Syriac word means putting an end, turning back, and the calendar explains that the days of rich food and celebration are over. In many Syro-Malabar homes Pethurtha evening is still a family meal shared with some solemnity, a farewell to meat and fish until Easter, and in older Syrian Christian households the vessels used for meat were scrubbed clean or set aside for the whole season. The St Thomas Christians have long called this season the fifty days fast, counted from Pethurtha to Easter. Today, the first Monday, the Church keeps the penitential service called Vibhoodi. The ashes are traditionally made by burning the tender coconut-leaf palms kept from last year's Oshana, and the priest traces a cross with them on our foreheads, recalling the word spoken to Adam: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The calendar asks for fasting and abstinence from meat today, and recommends abstinence throughout the season.
It is striking that the Church opens the Great Fast with the first page of the Bible. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” Into that darkness God speaks: “Let there be light”; and there was light. Again and again the refrain returns: “God saw that it was good.” The fast is not contempt for the body or for the good things of the world; it is God's word speaking again over the void and darkness in us, bringing order and light. Joshua stands where we stand today, at the edge of a river. Moses is dead, the Jordan lies ahead, and God says: “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” He gives Joshua one method for the crossing: “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night.” Paul names what went wrong with humanity: people “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” Fasting puts the creature back in its place, so that the Creator may be first again. And Paul is not ashamed: the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.”
In the Gospel Jesus says he has come “not to abolish but to fulfill” the law, and he carries it into the heart. Not only murder, but anger and insult are judged. Then he describes a scene every Christian knows: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” This is why the Vibhoodi is a penitential service of reconciliation. Ash on the forehead and peace in the home belong together. A fast that gives up fish and meat but keeps a quarrel alive has missed the heart of the matter. Seven weeks lie ahead: dust that knows it is dust, light that God speaks into the dark, courage for the crossing, and a brother or sister waiting for our first step.
Theme: “first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”
The ash of the Vibhoodi, the first light of creation, Joshua's courage, and the peace Jesus asks before the altar.
“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19
“For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” 2 Corinthians 6:2
Apply: Write down today what you will fast from, and keep the note in your Bible.
“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” Genesis 1:3
“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Apply: Ask God each morning of this week to speak his light into one dark corner of your life.
“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” Psalm 133:1
“leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:24
Apply: Take the first step towards one estranged person before Sunday.
The Great Fast begins with ash and with light: we are dust, and God speaks over us again.
Be strong and courageous, and let the first fruit of the fast be peace.
Take-home resolution: Make peace with one person before receiving Holy Qurbana on Sunday.
Dear friends, this morning the ash has marked our foreheads. The words remind us of the first sin and its sentence: you are dust, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19). Yesterday was Pethurtha; the feasting is over, and the fifty days fast has begun.
But the Church gives us today the first page of the Bible. God speaks into the darkness: let there be light (Genesis 1:3). Again and again he looks at what he has made and sees that it is good. The fast does not despise God's gifts. It makes room for God to create us anew.
Like Joshua at the Jordan, we stand at the edge of a crossing. God says to us too: be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9). And he gives us his word to carry, to meditate on day and night.
Jesus goes to the heart of the matter: if you remember at the altar that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there and go; first be reconciled (Matthew 5:24). Let the ash on our foreheads lead to peace in our homes. Then our fast will be pleasing to God. Amen.
Children, today the priest put ash on our foreheads in the shape of a cross. It means: I belong to Jesus, and I want to start again. Is there someone you need to say sorry to today?
Lord Jesus Christ, at the beginning of this holy fast you mark us with ashes and remind us that we are dust. Speak your light into our darkness, give us courage for the crossing of these days, and do not let us bring our gift to your altar while a brother or sister waits for our pardon. Make this Great Fast a time of new creation for us and for our families. Glory to you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen.
The Great Fast opens with the first page of the Bible and with a word about the altar. Genesis shows God speaking light and order into a formless dark, and calling what he makes good. Joshua stands at the edge of the Jordan and hears, “Be strong and courageous”, while Paul in Romans names the old disorder: people served the creature instead of the Creator. In Matthew, Jesus carries the commandment down into the heart, and sends the worshipper away from the altar to make peace first. On the day of Vibhoodi, the ash says that we are dust, and these readings say what God does with dust and darkness. The key words are good, fulfil and reconcile.
Setting.
The Bible opens not with a theory but with a solemn, almost liturgical poem of seven days. Many scholars think this page took its final form among priests in the time of the exile in Babylon, in the sixth century BC, when the great temples and star-gods of the conquerors seemed to rule the world. The Babylonian creation story tells of battles among gods. Genesis has no battle. One God speaks, and it is so. Today's reading covers the first four days and stops before living creatures appear.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,” (1:1)
Nothing stands before God. The Church reads the whole page with 2 Maccabees 7:28, where a mother tells her son that God “did not make them out of things that existed”.
“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” (1:3)
God's first act is a word. Paul remembers this verse when he says that the God who spoke light has now “shone in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 4:6). It is the hope of the Fast: the same word can speak over the dark places in us.
“God made the two great lights” (1:16)
Genesis does not use the ordinary Hebrew words for sun and moon, which in neighbouring languages were also names of gods. It says only “the greater light” and “the lesser light”. Lamps hung up by their Maker are not to be worshipped. Paul's complaint in today's epistle, that people “served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25), is the same warning.
“And God saw that it was good.” (1:18)
The refrain answers any contempt for the world. We fast from good things, not from bad ones. Food is not the enemy; the fast teaches us who gave it.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Scripture presents the Creator's work “symbolically as a succession of six days” (CCC 337), and that the world began when God's word drew it out of nothingness (CCC 338). It also joins the Word and the Breath of God at the origin of every creature (CCC 703). St Basil, preaching on these days, reports what he learned from a Syrian: that in his language the verb of 1:2 suggests a bird warming her eggs with her wings, so that the Spirit gives the waters life (in substance). The Syriac-speaking world has been reading this page with love from the beginning.
Setting.
The Sermon on the Mount is the first of five great discourses in Matthew. After the Beatitudes, vv. 17–20 state its principle: Jesus has come to fulfil the law. Then follow six contrasts, “You have heard that it was said... But I say to you”. Today's reading gives the principle and the first contrast, on murder and anger.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (5:20)
Many Pharisees were earnest teachers who loved the law, and Jesus does not ask for less than they did. He asks for more: a goodness that reaches the heart. The warning is addressed to his own disciples.
“But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment;” (5:22)
A note on the text. Some ancient manuscripts add “without cause” after “brother”; the NRSV and the POC follow those that lack it. The sentence is stronger without the escape. The word often printed as raka, which the NRSV gives as “insult”, is probably an Aramaic term of contempt, something like “empty head”. No one is to be treated as worthless.
“leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” (5:24)
Note who has the grievance: not “you have something against your brother” but “your brother or sister has something against you”. The first step belongs to the one who remembers. Jesus' first hearers in Galilee were days from the Temple, so the picture of walking home and back is deliberately striking.
“Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” (5:26)
The “penny” is the kodrantēs, a very small Roman coin. A quarrel left alone grows more costly.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that Jesus adds to the commandment the prohibition of anger, hatred and vengeance (CCC 2262), and it lists reconciliation before the offering among the first things his teaching on prayer requires (CCC 2608). On Jesus and the law see CCC 577–582. A very early Christian writing, the Didache (14:2), applies the verse to Sunday worship: no one who has a quarrel is to join the assembly until reconciled, so that the sacrifice may not be profaned (in substance).
Does Genesis 1 compete with science?
No. The Catechism calls the six days a symbolic presentation (CCC 337) and welcomes scientific study of the origins of the world (CCC 283–284). Genesis answers who made the world, why, and what it is worth. St Augustine warned Christians long ago not to speak foolishly about nature in the name of Scripture (in substance).
The calendar keeps this day as Vibhoodi, a penitential service, with fasting and abstinence from meat. The ash, traditionally from burning last year's Oshana palms, recalls the word to Adam: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). In the Holy Qurbana the peace is exchanged before the anaphora begins, so that this Gospel is acted out every time we approach the altar.