You touched my heart so much, God our loving Father as your words spoke today of people being sent away: Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac; so she demanded of Abraham: "Drive that slave and her son! No son of of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!" (Genesis 21:9-10)
Abraham was greatly distressed and so am I, Lord, when I remember and think of those many people driven away, sent home or so far away due to anger and jealousy, hatred and modern forms of slavery as well as sometimes for reasons of inefficiency and deficiencies.
Have mercy on us, O Lord when we find it so easy to drive people away without realizing for every person sent home or driven away with nowhere to go not only a job or education is lost but most of all, we deprive them of life and future.
And that is why we thank you O God, in taking care of Hagar and Ishmael after they were sent away like those many others in our own time sent away without the basic necessities and worse victims of human trafficking; We beg you, dear Father, like Jesus in the gospel may he set us free from the evils that bound us today when we see more the value of things and money than of every person. May the first martyrs of Rome pray for us to be firm in standing for the value of every person. Amen.
