All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through the love which listens.
Alexis Duecker, an asylum attorney with the New York Justice for Our Neighbors office (NY JFON), has worked for two years with some of her clients to try to get their asylum cases heard and decided.
Many of us, as individuals, know that God has called us to serve the poor and homeless in our communities. Some of our favorite biblical texts are Matthew 25:40 (“… Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me”) and Isaiah 61: 1-3 (“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, … to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit”).