Hear this, you who trample upon the poor!
The first reading today, from the prophet Amos, is a pointed exhortation against the oppression of the poor and economic injustice:
?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 diminish the containers for measuring, add to the weights, and fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!?
On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun set at midday and cover the earth with darkness in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentations. I will cover the loins of all with sackcloth and make every head bald. I will make them mourn as for an only son, and bring their day to a bitter end…? (Amos 8:4-6, 9-10).
This is an exhortation echoed throughout the scriptures so strongly that oppressing the poor and defrauding workers of their just wages are two of the four sins that ?cry out to heaven? (Catechism 1867). St. James reiterates the severity of this command in a way that should make us all pause…
Paul
Paul Fahey?is a husband, father of four, and?professional lay person.?He writes for Where Peter Is and Diocesan.
I was on a podcast!
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