Our God is God from of old, creator of the ends of the earth.
God does not faint or grow weary, and God's knowledge is beyond scrutiny.
God gives power to the faint, abundant strength to the weak. (Is 40:28-29)

Today's reading from Isaiah serves as a powerful reminder of the awesome and strengthening power of faith in the most difficult of times. Founding members of the National Black Sisters' Conference, who fought tirelessly to rid the Catholic Church of racism and sexism in the late sixties and seventies, used to greet one another with the following exchange:

First Sister: Do you have the strength, Sister?

Second Sister: I do, if you do.
Together in Unison: Then, we're strong!

Many of these sisters had desegregated the nation's historically white Catholic sisterhoods as teenagers and endured years of racial isolation and discrimination in their orders...