Achieving Justice for Humanity

And the LORD said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it. (Ezekiel 9:4) This instruction to the angel of the Lord precedes the “smiting” of all those who did not receive the mark. The issue of the justice of the Divine is raised by the texts in the Roman Catholic Lectionary today. Human emotion demands justice. Human justice and Divine justice are related but they are not the same. Is human justice supported by God? The text from Matthew 18 may indicate that the decisions concerning wrongdoing made in the Spirit by believers in communion with Jesus will be honoured by God. There are profound possibilities here. Is God’s justice only a rubber stamp of human action? Does the resonance of the Indwelling Spirit with the Divine presence bring the decisions about justice to the “will of the Father?” Today the Church commemorates St Clare who in partnership with St Francis brought renewal to the Church through the development of communities who adhered to the simple chaste and obedient life style of the “Rule of St Francis”. The Franciscans have impacted the lives of believers of many traditions since the thirteenth century.