Isaiah 54:1-10 / Luke 7:24-30
In the gospel, Jesus mentioned that among those who listened to John the Baptist, were surprisingly the tax collectors
We may know what kind of reputation those tax collectors had at that time - traitors, extortionists, blood suckers.
And who are the tax collectors of today? Well, we may immediately think of loan sharks, pimps, drug pushers, rapists, child abusers and all those evil and hard core people.
Yes those people come to mind so easily whenever we talk about evil and sin, just like tax collectors come the minds of the people at the time of Jesus.
It is so easy to think of those wicked and evil people. Yet have we also thought about those who have suffered because of their sin and wickedness?
Somehow in the attention given to the evil that is committed, we forgot about those who were
broken and destroyed by the evil. Strangely they are like the forsaken.
Yet the 1st reading calls on the forsaken to rejoice because the Lord remembers them and with an everlasting love He has taken pity on them.
Yes, though the mountains may depart and the hills be shaken, but God's love will never forget the forsaken and His covenant of peace with us will never be shaken.
The Lord is merciful and takes pity on us. Let us listen to the voice of the Lord and enter into His peace and rejoice.