Taste and See: Neighbourliness

The Lord says this:
Shout with joy for Jacob!
Hail the chief of nations!
Proclaim! Praise! Shout:
‘The Lord has saved his people,
the remnant of Israel!’

See, I will bring them back
from the land of the North
and gather them from the far ends of earth;
all of them: the blind and the lame,
women with child, women in labour:
a great company returning here.

They had left in tears,
I will comfort them as I lead them back;
I will guide them to streams of water,
by a smooth path where they will not stumble.
For I am a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my first-born son.

First reading for the 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 31:7-9

The Lord gives us hope, but so often others act so as to rob us of that hope.

Jews surviving the Holocaust and returning home were often met not with welcome but with prejudice and violence, even death, at the hand of their former neighbours.

• How free are we to act lovingly to those in need, victims of the violence of others?
• When circumstances change do we look first to our own advantage and hesitate before anything that would lead to our personal inconvenience or loss?

Mezuzah, Cracow, Poland. (c) 2014, Allen Morris.