Whatever the historical reference of this passage from Isaiah may be, we can hear it as the word of God addressed to us: as the people of God we must be a nation, a people that is just, one that keeps faith. The past year has seen many incidents which have caused a great crisis in the Church and caused much pain to all of us. The church has throughout its history passed through many crises and come through them more purified and stronger. So many members of the church have shown themselves as being unjust and failing to keep faith, but the vast majority of ordinary Catholics have not been like that. The vast majority have kept faith; they have remained faithful and honest in their Catholic lives. They are "the poor of the Lord" in the true biblical sense of the notion of poverty, which is the spiritual reality of faithfulness, i.e., "the person who does the will of My Father in Heaven" (Mt. 7:27), no matter what circumstances seem to dictate. It was among these "poor of the Lord" that Jesus was born and preached the Gospel.