From today's first reading: "Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land! 'When will the new moon be over,' you ask, 'that we may sell our grain, and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat? . . . We will buy the lowly for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!' The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done!"
From Lasallian Reflection 1: A Gospel Journey (2015-2016): "As Brother Álvaro RodrÍguez, former Superior General, emphasized, poverty takes many forms: there is the poverty of isolation and abandonment; the poverty of the excluded, who live on the edges of rich and opulent cities, those branded the society's 'failures'; the poverty of the victims of a culture of identity that refuses to accept what is different . . . yet another poverty is the condition of those with physical or mental problems; the poverty of migrants and refugees . . . the poverty of those who live without God, of those who have deliberately removed God from their lives; finally, there is the poverty of those young people who live without meaning or trust in their lives."
It is too easy to say that we serve the economically poor. The Brothers remind us of the multiple ways that our students can be marginalized and isolated that are just as pernicious as being economically deprived. We are warned by the prophet Amos that we must not surrender their needs to our own prepackaged desires. In what ways do we become more familiar with the concerns and needs of our students? How do we fashion the education that we provide in a way that addresses specifically the hearts and minds of the young people entrusted to our care?
Live, Jesus, in our hearts!