Isaiah is a prophet whom we hear from very often in the season of Advent. His message helps prepares us for the coming of the Lord. Today, Isaiah speaks about a lofty city that is brought down by the Lord, a city that ignores justice and the cries of the poor. The Lord turns the city into dust. The dust, in turn, is trampled down by the footsteps of the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden. The Lord humbles the haughty and the rich in this reading.
This message contained in Isaiah is essential to Catholic social teaching. Even so, I believe that we as a nation and we as Christians often struggle with the question: What does it mean to hear the cry of the poor? How does God want us to respond? How do we truly help. In my ministry as a lay missionary, I worked full-time at a soup kitchen and a food bank in Winnipeg, Canada where I had a lot of first hand interaction with the homeless, street people, prostitutes, and drug addicts. I left that experience with more questions than answers. Many of us want to help, but we are not sure how. And after living in several communities in the Mississippi Delta since I came to Mississippi as a public high school teacher, I often see our social welfare system hurting people and teaching them the wrong values rather than helping them. Even though it’s not easy to struggle with the poor an to journey with them, it is something with are called to do. We don’t have to look overseas or the large urban areas of our country to hear the cry of the poor. The poor are right here in our own community?
How are we responding to the poor in our midst? How are we creating a just society? Or, are we a lofty city that will be taken down by the Lord?
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