The Start of a Good Foundation

09-26-2021Weekly Reflection© LPi

What are the little ones? They are the poor, the marginalized, the women and men at the well, the Zacchaeus’ looking for Jesus from a tree, those mired in sin, the blind who want to see, and the lame who want to walk. They are the lepers and the different ones who have been told that they are unclean, and the ones who suffer from abuse and grave injustices and oppression. They are children who want nothing more than to be loved and enjoy celebrating their innocence. These are all the little ones and they are all vulnerable. Life already brings them burdens, we don’t need to add to them.

St. Oscar Romero said, “When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.” Why are so many people still so gravely hurting? We have the resources and the means to make things better. We choose not to. There are still those things called greed, pride, lust, apathy, jealously, gluttony, and anger that prevent us from seeing each other and people to be loved and not objects to be used. Is this how God intended things to be?

God loves what is good and upright. It doesn’t matter who did it or where it came from. In God’s eyes, the end result is always faith, hope, and love. Those will always unite a person with God. We fill our lives with many things that are not good either for ourselves or for others. All of us have to work to discover what it is, exactly, that leads to the world’s brokenness. There are people, systems, and ideologies in place that foster oppression and injustice rather than equity and fairness. Sadly, our complacency can be the greatest evil. Turning a blind eye, ignoring the truth, and believing that we are help-less to fix so great a problem, does little to move us closer to the kingdom of God. As members of the Body of Christ, we cannot condone anything that keeps people in misery.

As it is said, charity begins at home. Perhaps a good place to start is with our own households and making sure their foundations are properly laid.

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