WORD 2day: Saturday, 32nd week in Ordinary times
November 14, 2026: 3 John 5-8; Luke 18: 1-8
Taking care of strangers, widows and the orphans was a special commission given to the people by God. And that was an experiential learning on the part of the people who were themselves strangers, orphans and sojourners, in a foreign land. It is an experience that cannot be explained in terms but only experienced...and those who experience it, can never forget it!
However, the term stranger or foreigner was, and is, indicative of every one in need, people in insecure circumstances and people who have nothing to hold on to, wherever they are. Today we have every category you can ever think of within this definition of the people in need. The exploited, the immigrants, the refugees, the unemployed and the homeless!
They already have a grave situation in their lives, that of poverty, insecurity, homelessness, unemployment, lack of prospects and so on. Added to this, if they are exploited further - that is, their little taken away from them, constantly threatened with evacuation, needlessly suspected for all miscues, blamed for all social lapses... we can imagine how doubly unfortunate, orphaned and oppressed they could sense.
There is yet another, more treacherous, attitude in the world today, against which Pope Francis had time and again warned the people of God during his papacy - the attitude of indifference. Passing them by as if they did not exist! Not caring what happens to them, not bothering who is rendered homeless or who is left to die without food or who is condemned to suffer with no employment or who is crushed under the burden of debt... all that matters is the so-called development that parades affluence and divinises comfort and pleasure! Just look at the scenario today - with the war torn nations suffering by themselves and the rest of the world fighting their own battles within...
We cannot conform to the standards of the affluent and the dominant! We cannot even remain neutral in these circumstances... that is not possible, for a true disciple of Christ. We have a responsibility towards the part of suffering and neglected humanity... taking sides, that is true Chrsitian love!
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