Our Venerable Father and Confessor James, Bishop of Catania (813-20).
Great Fast Day 39. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Sixth Hour – Isaiah 65:8-16. Vespers – Genesis 46:1-7. Proverbs 23:15-24:5.
Read Isaiah 65:8-16
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah, we are told that: “The Lord will call his servants by a new name”. In Holy Baptism we were all given this new name – the name of Christ, or Christian as St. Cyril of Jerusalem explains, “With the ungrudging generosity of his godhead, Christ has granted to all of us to bear his name. For whereas as human sovereigns have some special title of sovereignty that they keep exclusively from use by other people, Jesus Christ, being Son of God, has deigned to bestow on us the title of Christians…” (Catechetical Lectures)
We were also given a new identity; for a name in the classical sense, reveals what something is at its very core or essence. Perhaps better stated – in this new identity it was revealed to us what each of us truly always was – the image of God, who is Christ. Recall St. Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)
As we draw towards the end of the Great Fast and prepare for Great and Holy Week and the Paschal Vigil where our catechumens will be baptized, chrismasted and receive the most Holy Eucharist, we would do well to reflect on this newness of life that we all receive in the Church. This life is truly different from the life we lived before our incorporation into Church and ought to manifest itself as such in the way we live our daily lives as Blessed Theodoret reminds us, “…those who believed were called Christians. They bore this in place of all approving words. When one wished to praise, they were accustomed to add after many kind words, “He is a true Christian.” And when on another occasion exhorting someone, they were accustomed to say, “Act as a Christian, do what befits a Christian.” So this name is full of eulogy and blessing.” (Commentary on Isaiah)
Great Lent itself is a kind of microcosm of the Christian life itself. We do not live differently from the life we live outside of Great Lent, but we live the Christian life more intensely. If we have been struggling to keep the fast well, we have this last week as a opportunity to begin anew, to repent more deeply and to give ourselves to the struggle as best as we can – knowing that the one who is our life, for whom we are named is the one who calls all, and rewards even though who work only from the eleventh hour as well as those who have borne the heat of the day. (cf Matthew 20:1-16)