96th Meditation on God the Father
“The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless” (Ps 146:9).
In His love and providence, our Father has all people in view; and He exhorts us to pay special attention to those who are easily marginalized. Strangers are liable to be exploited and deceived, if love does not take care of them and meet their foreign character with gentleness, so that they may know that they are sheltered by this love.
For our Father there are neither strangers nor foreigners. The Church too, as long as she remains and acts in the love of the Father, is capable of making all people feel at home. In the Church there are no “strangers”; in her all peoples are gathered around one Father and all men are called to live as His children: “So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors; you are fellow-citizens with the holy people of God and part of God’s household” (Eph 2:19).
Orphans and widows also need a home. They, who have been deprived of the natural shelter of a family, need to be inserted into the great family of God’s children. Our Father asks us to take care of them in a special way. His paternal Heart teaches us not to overlook them or trample on their rights. Moreover, He exhorts us to love them with special affection, thus bearing witness to the love our Heavenly Father has for them.
To defend the most needy does not only refer to doing them justice, but to letting them know that they are always surrounded by the love and providence of our Father, who forgets no one, who knows every need and desires to remedy it.
When we imitate this attitude and hasten to help those in need, they will experience through us the love of the Father, who, in addition to alleviating their difficulties, gives them the consolation of knowing that they have not been forgotten or abandoned.
We are entrusted with practicing the works of mercy in order to make the love of the Father present everywhere and to become people of love ourselves. By pointing out that the works we perform are not merely human, but have their origin in God, the people we serve will come to recognize with gratitude the love of our Father (cf. Mt 5:16). If this happens, our works of mercy will not only have re-established what is right and helped those in need; they will be for them an encounter with the living God, who is present in His children. Thus, we will have helped much more to remedy their need, because they will always have recourse to God, even when they are forgotten by other people.