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From: Isaiah 61:1-3a, 6a, 8-11
The Herald of Good Tidings
[10] I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
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Commentary:
61:1-11. Into the air of great joy reflected in the previous hymn, the prophet inserts this very important oracle about the new messenger (vv. 1-3). The rest of the chapter is made up of three stanzas that celebrate the wonders of the holy city. These can be seen in profound, spiritual renewal (vv. 4-7), perfect fulfillment of the promises made to the ancient patriarchs (vv. 8-9), and joy-in-worship, comparable to that of bridegroom and bride, or that of the farmer on seeing a rich harvest (vv. 10-11).
The remarkable events and features of the city point to the time of the End, the tune of the Lord’s definitive salvific intervention. In this context these new things are ultimate and definitive. Because in the New Testament the Church is called “God’s building” (1 Cor 3:9), erected on the foundation of the apostles (1 Cor 3:11), Christian tradition has seen the new, glorious Jerusalem as a symbol of the Churchthat makes its way through this world and will be made manifest at the end of time (cf. “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, 756-757).
61:1-3. This very compact oracle depicts the eschatological messenger speaking a 5oliloquy. It is one of the key passages in the book of Isaiah. It clearly has connections with the songs of the Servant, especially the second song (49:1-6). The pouring out of the Spirit involves anointing as in the case of the king (cf. 11:2) and in that of the Servant of the Lord (42:1). But the messenger is more than a king, more than a prophet, more than the community dwelling in the holy city in the latter days. His mission is a dual one— to be a messenger and a comforter. As a messenger, like a king’s ambassador in times of war, he brings good tidings: he announces redemption for slaves, release for prisoners (cf. Jer 34:8, 17). His message proclaims a new order things where there will be no need for repression and where concord and well-being will prevail. The “year of the Lord’s favor” (v. 2) is similar to the jubilee year (cf. Lev 25:8-19) or the sabbatical year (cf. Ex 21:2-11; Jer 34:14; Ezek 46:17) in the sense that it is a day chosen by the Lord, and different from any other; but here it means the point at which God shows himself to be most gracious and bestows definitive salvation (cf. 49:8). It is also called the day of vengeance (V. 2) because on that day, essentially a day of good news, the wicked, too, receive their just deserts.
As a comforter he will bind up hearts broken by illness or misfortune, and give encouragement to those who weep and revive those who mourn in Zion. When the comforter is the Lord or a messenger of his (cf. 40:1), one can expect him to re-establish his peoples to set things right, (the way they were at the beginning), to renew the broken Covenant and re-establish institutions that had been dismantled, that is, bring about a situation where everything is in plentiful supply.
People who have reached rock bottom (the poor, prisoners etc.) will be given a place of honor on that day, and a wreath, perfume and a mantle of praise (V. 3). In sacred texts of the post-exilic period, the concept of the “poor” (or “afflicted”: cf. note m) already went beyond the social category of those least well off: it had a religious connotation, meaning “the humble”, those who saw themselves as having no value before God and who simply put their faith in his divine mercy. The final definition of the “poor” will emerge in the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12).
In Jesus’ time, Jewish tradition, found in the targum or Aramaic translation of the Bible, considered the messenger described here to be a prophet (and for that reason it introduced this oracle with the words “Thus says the prophet”). So, when Jesus reads this passage in the synagogue of Nazareth he points out that “today the scripture has been fulfilled” (Lk 4:21) and that he is the prophet of whom Isaiah spoke. By doing so, he is saying that he is the Messiah, the Christ, the one anointed by the Holy Spirit (cf. Is 11:2), not so much as a king but as a prophet who proclaims salvation. Ever since then, Christian teaching sees Jesus as the last messenger sent by the Holy Spirit: “The prophet presents the Messiah as the one who comes in the Holy Spirit, the one who possesses the fullness of this Spirit in himself and at the same time for others, for Israel, for all the nations, for all humanity. The fullness of the Spirit of God is accompanied by many different gifts, the treasures of salvation, destined in a particular way for the poor and suffering, for all those who open their hearts to these gifts—sometimes through the painful experience of their own existence—but first of all through that interior availability which comes from faith. The aged Simeon, the ‘righteous and devout man’ upon whom ‘rested the Holy Spirit’, sensed this at the moment of Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, when he perceived in him the ‘salvation prepared in the presence of all peoples’ at the price of the great suffering—the Cross—which he would have to embrace together with his Mother. The Virgin Mary, who ‘had conceived by the Holy Spirit’, sensed this even more clearly, when she pondered in her heart the ‘mysteries’ of the Messiah, with whom she was associated” (”Dominum Et Vivificantem”, 16).