Ordinary Time 
Pause
We are drawn to stories of children. We see ourselves in their faces and we naturally want to care for and protect them.
When children are threatened we want to respond. We want to do...something.
Our children belong to all of us and we each have a role to play in making their lives safe and sustaining. God's justice calls us to this task.
Listen
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Isaiah 58:6–7
Think
When families are separated, injustice happens. In recent weeks, we have seen parents marching off alone to face powerful enemies in attempts to save kidnapped girls. We have seen families longing to bury their loved ones—whether they were lost on an airplane, in a ferry accident, or down a mine shaft.
When people reject or harm their own family members, it is a particularly evil form of injustice. In the United States, there are 2.9 million reports of child abuse annually. Teen runaways are often rejected by their own parents, and living on the streets puts them at risk of being prostituted. In some places, poverty puts children at risk of being sold by their parents—especially girl children.
When external forces separate families, injustice happens. When internal forces separate families, injustice also happens.
True worship cries out for justice for families. It works for a world where such things do not happen. How will you cry out for justice on behalf of your family and others today?
Laura Rector
Pray
Jesus, I cry to you for justice. Help me to practice the type of worship that acts for justice on behalf of those who hurt. Amen.
Go
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
