Reflection
Daily we are inundatedwith situations which get their momentary interest on news channels and then are absorbed with a sigh …another mass shooting of innocent people… another reversal of policies to address climate change… more corrupt self-interested politicians…money poured in to control elections …blatant lies promoted as facts… refusal to support programs that ease poverty…and so on. When situations became blatantly contrary to his values, Jesus expressed his outrage. He called the religious leaders “whited sepulchers” and Herod a “fox”. He threw the buyers and sellers out of the temple. In the face of clear injustices, he did not remain passive or continue to live comfortably. He was outraged. We are his followers who claim to believe in his values. How much will it take to outrage us?
Prayer
Give us knowledge, understanding and courage to act justly.
Action
Reflect on the question” How much will it take to outrage us?” Why is there no effective outraged united action to correct injustices? Why is there a shrugging acceptance as long as our lives are untouched? What about us?
Suggested Reading
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a ‘den of robbers“.
Matthew 21:13
To all people of good will who are working for social justice: never tire of working for a more just world, marked by greater solidarity!
Pope Francis
Throughout history, “simple people” have reshaped the world through speaking up. But until one’s heart is changed, nothing will be changed. The intentions of true, positive change must hold up, or things will continue to stay as they are.
Joan Chittister
What would Jesus do in our context? He might once again disrupt the temple—the unholy alliance between religion and empire. I think he would teach the wrongness and futility of violence in human affairs. He would be passionate about compassion and justice as the primary virtues of a life centered in the God whom he knew. And of course, he would teach the importance of a deep centering in God.
Marcus Borg
The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.
Richard Rohr
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Elie Wiesel
It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.
Carl T. Rowan
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
Frederick Douglas
In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand-fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.
Charles Bukowski
It is not a persuasive argument that an evil should continue because it has existed in the past.
William Hastie
The underlying sickness of human life is an unwillingness to look with open eyes at the condition of the world.
Hu Shih