Saint Pius X, Pope

. . . with no one to look after them or to search for them.

Elie Wiesel, the famed activist and Holocaust survivor, once said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Wiesel saw this kind of indifference every day during his captivity as Nazi soldiers treated their prisoners as numbers, as “units” awaiting extermination. By contrast, to hate someone implies having feelings for that person, however negative.

Just as Wiesel devoted himself to awakening the world to injustice and suffering, so Ezekiel called the “shepherds of Israel”—the kings and rulers—to account for their injustices (Ezekiel 34:2). Their sin was not just plundering the people. It was their indifference to the people God had called them to care for. They ignored the needs of the poor and the sick and the lost. Their failure to love and the absence of any sign of concern for their people manifested the exact opposite of the kind of love God was calling them to.

It can be tempting to dismiss Ezekiel’s condemnation, thinking it is intended for a different audience. After all, not many of us would consider ourselves equivalent to the “shepherds” the prophet confronted in his day. But then again, maybe we are. Each of us is a “shepherd” because Jesus has called us to love our neighbor as ourselves. And he has made it clear that we are all neighbors to one another (Luke 10:29-37).

At each Mass, we ask God’s forgiveness “for what I have done and what I have failed to do.” It’s that failure that Ezekiel is calling our attention to. How often do we fail to care about someone’s needs—especially if that person is poor or marginalized? Isn’t that a form of indifference?

So try something a little different today. At your next meal, pray for the people who made it possible: the ones who farmed your food, the ones who packaged and delivered it, and the ones who prepared it. Pray also for those who will go without a meal today. Acknowledge how you are connected to people you may never meet, your “neighbors” near and far. As you do, the Lord will gradually turn your indifference to love that bears fruit in action.

“Jesus, teach me how to love all my neighbors.”

Ezekiel 34: 1-11
Psalm 23:1-6
Matthew 20:1-16