Isaiah 1:10-17 / Matthew 10:34 - 11:1
We believe that God hears our prayers and will answer them.
At times, our prayers are answered immediately.
At other times, our prayers are answered in God’s time.
Yet at other times, God answers our prayers in His way and not in a way that we expect.
But can it ever be that God does not respond to our prayers.
And if that is ever the case, could it ever be that a no response is also a sort of response.
When we think that God is not hearing our prayers or not responding to our prayers, maybe we should do some thinking.
In the 1st reading, God made it clear to His people that He has heard their prayers and seen their holocausts.
But He is not responding to their prayers nor accepting their holocaust.
Because as much as they pray and offer holocausts, at the same time they commit injustice and sin, and then expect God to answer their prayers.
Hence God tells them: Take your wrong-doing out of my sight. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow.
So, if we ask God to hear and answer our prayers, then on our part let us do what God wants of us, which is essentially doing what is good, right and just.