Joy in Justice
BY GRACE ADAMS | December 18, 2023
Sunday’s Readings
In the home stretch this Advent season, we attempt to wait with hope. Yet, waiting hopefully in this short Advent season feels challenging as violence, injustice, and oppression continue to harm individuals, families, and communities. This week’s Responsorial Psalm proclaims part of The Magnificat, which has often brought me hope during times of hopelessness. This song of liberation continues to apply to our world today and can bring hope and joy to all experiencing injustice and oppression.
I was first invited to take a deeper, intentional look into The Magnificat in high school. A theology teacher of mine revealed a more human view of Mary when she accepted God’s call to bring Jesus into the world. How incredibly revolutionary for a young girl on the margins to proclaim such joy and hope as she collaborated with God’s plan for justice; “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
Imagining and working toward a world where people’s needs are met, and their safety and livelihood are given dignity and respect can feel hard to attain. Still, there is joy and excitement in what that work for justice can bring.
This work cannot continue without the vision and hope for a better future. This week’s readings invoke the joy and excitement that comes from knowing that we are called by God, like Mary, to the joy of justice.
Grace Adams joined the ISN staff in 2022 as the coordinator for the Catholic Ethical Purchasing Alliance. She is an alumni of Le Moyne College and spent a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the Rochester food bank where she assisted in the development of several community health programs.
It is often those who seemingly have lost everything who still have hope.
Tomorrow will be better.
Aren’t we all complicit in genocide that is going on in the world today, when we abhor it and still do nothing?
Maybe after the bombing of one of the oldest Christian communities in the world in Gaza and Mother Teresa’s sisters working there, the world will realise that Palestinians are not just Muslims. They are a people that have lived in the Holy Land long before the land was given to the Jews, 75 years ago.
If we do not grieve for the loss of human lives, then we are not human and cannot call ourselves children of God.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” We are called like Mary to the joy of justice. The justice of the migrant having a place to live and eat, the joy of those free from abuse that they also have the joy of living in justice, the prisioners who have been free sothat they too can live the joy of justice.The joy of justice is also manifest in small ways when we encourage others to use the gifts God has given them in order to create a more just world. The joy of justice is making room for people in our pew when they want to pray with us. The joy of justice is manifest when we grieve for those who need justice and I offer it to them.
Wonderful to see yet another fellow LeMoyne alum dedicated to the cause of social justice!
We are called. It is comforting. It takes courage to answer a call.