Isaiah is a prophet whom we often hear from in the season of Advent. In today’s reading from Isaiah, we hear about a lofty city that
is brought down by the Lord, a city that ignores justice and the cries of the
poor. The city is turned to dust. The dust, in
turn, is trampled down by the footsteps of the poor, the oppressed, and the
downtrodden.
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? In my ministry as a lay missionary, I worked full-time at a soup kitchen &
food in a large city in 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 – it is right here in our own community – that is probably
obvious to all of us.
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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