We shall never hear the cries of the poor if we listen only to ourselves

“You must not molest the stranger or oppress him, for you lived as strangers in the land of Egypt. You must not be harsh with the widow, or with the orphan; if you are harsh with them, they will surely cry out
to me, and be sure I shall hear their cry.” – Ex 22:21-13

The Word of God, codified in Israel’s ancient Law, the Prophets and subsequent writings, expressed Israel’s relationship with her God. We are overwhelmed by the detailed laws that governed (and continue to govern) the daily lives of Jewish faithful. Bewildering though this detail might appear, we should remember that Jesus came not to abolish the Law of ancient Israel, but rather to bring it to perfection. The graciousness of Israel’s law was expressed in the care demanded for the stranger, the widow and the orphan. The experience of life as a stranger, an outsider to be exploited and rejected, lay at the heart of Israel’s relationship with her God. Abram had been called to abandon the security of a settled life to become a vulnerable stranger in the land that God would show him. His children had been enslaved as strangers in the land of Egypt. Their cries of distress had been heard by the God who, in Moses, had called them to freedom and a land that would be their own.

Israel’s law therefore demanded that the graciousness that had called the people into being should be expressed in their compassion for the most vulnerable, the most forgotten, the most exploited. If we have truly understood the graciousness with which the Father has embraced our sinfulness, then we, in our turn, shall live as the Father’s compassion towards a needy world. In the words of Pope Francis, charity is not a gesture to quieten our conscience; it is the natural expression of what we, who were once far away, have become in Christ Jesus. Let us never forget the warning that Moses attached to the Lord’s exhortation to care for the needy: “If you are harsh with them, they will surely cry out to me, and be sure that I shall hear their cry.”

We shall never hear the cries of the poor if we are distracted listening only to ourselves. In today’s Gospel, Jesus showed himself to be the fulfilment of Israel’s compassionate law. The Pharisees, again determined to disconcert Jesus, asked that he nominate the greatest of the many laws entrusted to Israel. Without hesitation, he responded in the words we know so well: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second resembles it: you must love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus concluded that these commandments define our relationship with God in the sense that they are the fulfilment of the Law, the Father’s will for us.

The love to which we are called should not be confused with the superficial sentiment that is often rooted in self. Jesus purified such shallow sentiment in the demand that we should love as he has loved us. The love of Jesus was anchored in the will of the Father and demonstrated in a life given to the Father’s will. We proclaim the Gospel to the world when we aspire to a love that “does not insist on its own way, is not resentful, that does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in what is right. A love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.”