Isaiah’s words in today’s first reading are very shocking: “When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen.” Isaiah is warning the people that God is refusing to listen to their prayers. Why? Because of their social injustice against the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant. So, although they spread out their hands in prayer God will not listen to their prayers because “Your hands are full of blood!” Isaiah calls them to repentance: “Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds…cease doing evil…Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s pleas, defend the widow.”
Isaiah teaches that love of God (prayer) must also be joined with love of neighbor (justice). Jesus repeats this same teaching of Isaiah:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40).
Jesus teaches that we will be judged not on how many prayers we have said but how we have treated the least, the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant:
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46).
Let us pray that God will open our hearts to hear the cry of the poor and that as followers of Jesus we may truly hunger and thirst for justice.
Image: “Alms for the elderly poor” by FotoGrazio is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.