Those words, from the prophet Isaiah to the persecuted Jewish people of Old Testament times, also call us to not be silent in the face of the challenges of our age; but rather, to hold up the “burning torch” of God’s love, mercy, and justice, as we work for his vindication of all who today suffer persecution, injustice, violence, or deprivation.
It seemed particularly appropriate to hear this passage at Sunday Mass in Catholic churches on Jan. 19 of this year, the day before we honored the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a prophet and martyr for our time who also would not be silent in the face of injustice. Instead, he bore courageous witness against racial segregation and persecution, using nonviolent civil disobedience, and time in jail, to hold high the “burning torch” of freedom for “all God’s children.”
In his historic “I Have a Dream” oration from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, Rev. King, noting the real but painstaking pace of progress toward racial equality in those days, observed: “There are those asking the devotees of civil rights: ‘When will you be satisfied?’
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