Please read this passage before reading the homily.
Isaiah is a prophet of the present and of the future, calling for repentance and proclaiming rescue and salvation. He would call Israel’s kings and people away from idolatry to faithfulness to the one true God. Later, as the Exile was ending, he was called to support the people and prepare them for return.
He was more than a prophet. He was founder of a school of prophets that lasted more than two centuries among God’s people. Scholars have divided his book into three parts. Chapters 1-39 generally speaking cover Isaiah’s ministry during the time of the kings. Chapters 40-55 speak to the exiled community consolation. Chapters 56-66 seem to have come from a later period, in which the prophet’s school disciples urges Israel to find contentment with the Lord God and offers some further reflections or the earlier work of Isaiah.
If only we were to listen to the voice of the Lord our God, then our troubles would be over. There is a sadness in the voice of the prophet; if they would listen, but apparently they do not listen. In the winter of our discontent, Isaiah calls us to be discontented with ourselves and contented with the Lord our God. The Lord wants to teach us the way we should go, but it seems that we prefer wars, violence, and our own selfishness to the ways of the Lord and the peace that comes with the Lord.