In today's first reading, Isaiah 58: 9b-14, the Lord says to us: "If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusations and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like the midday; then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land."
I pray this prayer, not only for myself, but for those in our world who are oppressing others, who are mouthing false accusations and engaging in malicious speech against other persons and/or other nations. May God forgive these people and grant them the grace of conversion. In the Gospel acclamation of today the Lord says to us in Ezekiel 33: 11, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion, that he may life."
We may want the wicked of our world to be destroyed by some means--natural or intentional--but that is not the will of our God or theirs, the one true God of us all! Let us, therefore, pray for the conversion of all men and women, especially those oppressing others persons and/or other nations.
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