The job of a prophet is not an easy one. And we should all know, because we are all in some ways the prophetic seeds the Lord is sowing in the world. We might fall on good soil, or amongst rocks or thorns, but wherever we are, we are expected to bear fruit. We are called upon to preach the Word in our actions and sometimes our words, no matter how difficult a job it can sometimes be. And we prophesy knowing that our words and actions come from our God who is the one who places those words on our lips in the first place. Our witness can be an authentic one if we remember the words of the Psalmist today: âO God, you have taught me from my youth, and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.â
Tag: prophecy
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Thursday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Amos and Jesus are prophetic voices that we hear in our Scriptures this morning. Unfortunately, as is often the case with prophets, neither is a welcome voice. Amos makes it clear that he is not speaking on his own, or even because he wanted to. If it were up to him, heâd go back to being a simple shepherd and dresser of sycamore trees. But he knows that the Lord was using him to speak to Amaziah, and he had no intention of backing down. In todayâs Gospel, Jesus could have cured the paralytic with one touch and without much fanfare. But that wasnât what he was there to do. He was there to preach forgiveness of sins by the way he healed the paralyzed person. Jesus used that simple situation of healing to be a prophetic voice in the world, saying to everyone present that real healing only comes about through the forgiveness of sins.
That unnamed, gender-unspecified paralyzed person could be you or me today, or someone weâll meet during this day. Who among us is not paralyzed by sin in some way? To whatever extent we are the ones in need of healing, may we all hear the prophetic voice of Jesus saying to us: âYour sins are forgiven. Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.â
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Monday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time
Sometimes Godâs blessings can be challenging. For example, we might not think that those who are meek and those who mourn are blessed. And we certainly wouldnât celebrate the blessings of those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, would we? Itâs even more challenging when we remember that the word âblessedâ in Scripture could also be translated as âhappy.â Would we think of those people as happy? Probably not, but God does.
Elijah the Tishbite knew this blessing of God too. The prophetâs job is always a demanding one. Itâs one of great blessing, because the prophet is called by God and formed from his motherâs womb. But itâs also a great challenge: people donât usually want to hear what a prophet says â after all, if they were open to the message, a prophet probably wouldnât be necessary â and quite often the prophets were chased out of town, beaten, and even murdered. Elijahâs job was going to be challenging, but it would also be blessed: God provided for his needs at Wadi Cherith and at the end of his life, whisked him off to heaven in a chariot of fire.
So itâs important for us to remember, I think, that while God never promises to make our lives free and easy, he does promise to bless us. He will bless us with whatever gifts we need to do the work he has called us to do, the work for which he formed us in our motherâs womb. The happiness of the blessing might not come in this life, but we who do Godâs will can look forward to our reward, which Jesus promises will be great, in heaven.
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Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
At our core, we all want peace and security in our lives. We donât want rough waters, or pain, or discord in our families, and thatâs all understandable. I think itâs that very same sentiment that is behind our Scripture readings today.
The Jewish people, the elders and the scribes, the religious establishment of the time, had their laws and customs, and for them, following those laws and customs represented a peaceful and secure life. So they were not at all open to any kind of teaching that challenged their way of life. Stephen points out that whenever a prophet called them to a deeper reality, a deeper sense of Godâs call, rather than accept that teaching and reform their lives, their ancestors instead murdered the prophets. And so their response was to prove his point. They could not accept Stephenâs own prophecy that Christ in his glory was the key to human salvation. So they stone him to death, with the tacit approval of a man named Saul, a man for whom God had future plans.
The crowd in the Gospel reading wants peace and security too. They had recently been fed in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. But they had missed the point. They wanted just the bread they could eat for today; they didnât get and didnât want to get the bread Jesus really wanted them to have â the bread of eternal life. And so they ask today for another feeding sign. Just like Moses was able to provide bread from heaven, they wanted Jesus to feed their physical hunger too. But Jesus is more interested in their spiritual hunger, and longs to provide that in himself, he who is the bread of life.
But if all we hunger for is peace and security, bread for today, then we will certainly miss receiving the Bread of Life. Our hearts have to be open and our desires have to be for the deepest longings. Then we can receive our Savior who wants to give us everything we truly need. âI am the bread of life;â he says to us. âWhoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.â
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Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time
Have you ever had to deal with people working against you? Most of us have. Most of us have experienced people spreading lies about us, trying to get others to work against us. And today we find ourselves in good company. Todayâs readings find the prophet Jeremiah, king David and Jesus all in that same boat.
A prophetâs job is never easy; nobody wants to hear what they donât want to hear. So for Jeremiah, things are getting dangerous: people want him dead. The same is true for Jesus, who is rapidly approaching the cross. David finds that his enemies are pursuing him to the point of death, like the waters of the deep overwhelming a drowning man.
But all of them find their refuge in God. Jeremiah writes, âFor he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!â David takes consolation in the fact that âFrom his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.â And for Jesus, well, his time had not yet come.
When we are provoked like they were, how do we respond? Is our first thought to take refuge in God, or do we try to solve the problem on our own? If we donât turn to God, we might find those waves overwhelming us; if we turn to God, things may or may not improve, but whatever the case, we will always find refuge and safety in our God.
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Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time
We just finished hearing about the challenges and ministry of Jonah this past week. Jonah, called to preach repentance to the Ninevites, finds that he would rather not, and so attempts to get away from God. That, of course, doesnât work because there is no where that God is not, so he ends up in the belly of a big fish for three days and nights, and is eventually disgorged in Nineveh to do the work he was called to do. This he does, begrudgingly, and the people of Nineveh repent, to the praise and glory of God.
And today we hear that no sign will be given to the people of Jesusâ time except this sign of Jonah. And that is true. Jesus is called to preach repentance just like Jonah was, although, praise God, he does it willingly. Jesus too will be covered over for three days and three nights, but this time in the tomb and not a fish. He then is disgorged in the glory of the Resurrection to give the way to repentance, which some have done, to the praise and glory of God. This is the only sign we need.
But Jesus berates the people because while the evil people of Nineveh repented, the Jews of Jesusâ day not so much. The people of Nineveh didnât have anything near as great a prophet as Jesus is, and they repented, but the people of Jesusâ time did not. And so history and eternity will be kinder to the Ninevites than to these people.
The Psalmist today sings that the Lord has made known his salvation. This he has done, to the Ninevites, to the people of Jesusâ time, and to us. Today we pray for the softening of our hearts so that we might repent of our wickedness in the way that the Ninevites did, and so have eternal life.
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Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
When we think about prophets and prophecy, I think our minds always take us to ancient days. All the prophets we can think of lived many centuries ago: Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Amos and all the rest, right up to John the Baptist who was the last of the prophets of old and the beginning of the prophecy of the new kingdom. All of it culminating in the person of Jesus Christ, whose prophecy was the voice of God himself. But I think our readings today call us to look at prophecy once again, and to be open to the fact that there are many more prophets than we can think of right away, prophets that have lived a bit more recently than Moses and Elijah and all the others.
For Moses, prophecy was a huge task. He bore the responsibility of bringing Godâs message of salvation to a people who had become used to living without it. He was to strike the covenant between God and his people who had largely forgotten about God, or thought God forgot about them. So his prophetic burden was great, but God knew the challenges Moses faced, and offered to take some of his prophetic spirit and bestow it on the seventy elders. So seventy were chosen, a list was drawn up, and a ceremony was prepared.
Two of their number â Eldad and Medad â were missing from the group during the ceremony, but the spirit was given to them anyway. This had Joshua all bent out of shape. How could they be prophesying when they had not taken part in the ritual? So he complains about it to Moses, who clearly does not share his concern. He accuses Joshua of jealousy and says to him, âWould that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!â
Mosesâ vision for the ministry was bigger than himself, bigger than Joshua, bigger than even the chosen seventy. And he makes a good point here. What if every one of Godâs people knew God well enough to prophesy in Godâs name? What if all of us who claim to follow God could speak out for Godâs concern for the needy, the marginalized and the dispossessed? The world would certainly be a much different place. Joshuaâs concern was that the rules be followed. Mosesâ concern was that Godâs work be done.
And so thereâs a parallel in the first part of todayâs Gospel, of course. This time itâs John who is all bent out of shape. Someone was casting out demons in Jesusâ name, and even worse, that someone was apparently successful! Jesus, of course, does not share Johnâs concern. Jesusâ vision of salvation was bigger than Johnâs. If demons are being cast out in Jesusâ name, what does it matter who is doing it? If people are being healed from the grasp of the evil one and brought back to the family of God, well then, praise God! Jesus even goes so far as to say that if people are bringing others back to God, which is the fundamental mission of Jesus in the first place, then they really are members of the group. Anyone who is not against us is for us. Anyone who heals a person in Godâs name is accomplishing the mission, so praise God.
I think the point here that we need to get is that prophets come in all shapes and sizes. During the rite of baptism, there is an anointing with the sacred Chrism oil that anoints us in the image of Jesus as priest, prophet and king. It is part of our baptismal calling for all of the people of the Lord to be prophets. And so we really ought to be hearing the word of the Lord all the time, from every person in our lives. God gives us all people who are prophetic witnesses to us: people who say and live what they believe. They might be our parents or our children, the colleague at work, the person who sits next to us in math class, or even the elderly neighbor who seems to always want to talk our ear off. At the basic level, one of the most important questions that arises in todayâs Liturgy of the Word is, who are the prophets among us? Who is it in our lives that has been so gifted with the spirit that they make us want to be better people and live better lives?
But as much as we have those kind of prophetic voices in our lives, there are also the other voices. These are the voices of our culture that drag us down to the depths of brokenness, debauchery and despair. That, I think is what Jesus meant by all that drastic surgery he talked about at the end of the Gospel reading today.
Maybe we donât need to chop off a hand, but instead chop off some of the things those hands do. Maybe itâs a business deal that is not worthy of our vocation as Christians. Or it could be a sinful activity that we no longer should be engaged in. We probably donât need to lop off a foot. But we may indeed need to cut out of our lives some of the places those feet take us. Whether theyâre actual places or situations that provide occasions for sin, they must go. Iâm not suggesting that you gouge out an eye. But maybe cut out some of the things that those eyes see. Whether itâs places on the internet we ought not go, or television shows or movies that we should not see, they have to go. Some people may find that they need to get rid of the computer or television, or put them in a more public spot. It may be hard to do without these things, but better that than being so wrapped up in our own needs that we forget about God. Better to live without these things than to be forever without God.
When I read this section of the Gospel reading, I always think of the words of the Act of Contrition: The last words of that prayer say something like, âI firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin.â Or if you grew up a bit more recently, it says, âI firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.â Avoiding whatever leads us to sin, avoiding the near occasions of sin, that is what the prophets among us call us to do. It might seem like radical surgery, but itâs best to chop these things out mercilessly so that we can fully partake of the mercy of God.
Prophecy is a huge responsibility. We might be the prophets, or we might be the ones hearing the prophets, but in either case we have work to do. Prophets need to be faithful to Godâs spirit, and hearers need to be open to the word and ready to act on it. Prophecy nearly always calls us to a radical change. May God help us to recognize the prophets among us, and make us ready to hear the word of the Lord.
Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!
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Monday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time
Today Jesus tussles not with the scribes and Pharisees as he often does, but instead with the people of his own home town. They are amazed at his words and speak highly of him, right up until the time when he begins to challenge them. Then they have no more use for them. The question for us disciples today is who are the prophets among us and what message are they bringing us? God may well be using someone in our workplaces or homes or schools or wherever we find ourselves this day to speak a message to us. The question is, will we be open to hear it?
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Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]
When I met with Father Jim before I came here to Saint Petronille a few weeks ago, the one concern I expressed was coming back to my home parish. I thought it might be weird, and I quoted the exact line in todayâs Gospel: âA prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.â I asked him what he thought about that and he said he didnât know; heâs never had to experience that himself. But, he also assured me that youâd all be on your best behavior! So weâll just have to see how that goes.
But it is a valid concern, because, as I believe todayâs Liturgy of the Word is saying, we are all of us called to be prophets. When we are baptized, we are anointed with the Sacred Chrism oil, the oil whose name has the same root word as the word âChrist.â In that anointing, we are called to be other christs to the world, we are anointed as Jesus was, priest, prophet and king. So the mission is laid out for us on our baptism day. As priests, we are called to sacrifice for the good of others. As prophets, we are called to speak the truth and witness to the will of God. As kings, we are called to reign eternally with Christ our King in the kingdom that knows no end.
Today, I want to focus, as our readings suggest, on the whole idea of us being anointed as prophets to the world. This presents two important issues. First, whether we like it or not, we are called to be prophets. And second, whether we like it or not, there are prophets among us.
So first, we are called to be prophets. And we may in fact not be thrilled about being prophets. With good reason, I think, because a prophetâs job is not an easy one. Prophets are called to witness to the truth, and quite often, people just donât want to hear about the truth. God says as much to Ezekiel in todayâs first reading: âHard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.â You know, thatâs not a scriptural quotation youâll often see on a vocation poster! But itâs a warning we all need to hear, because we will always in our witnessing to the truth come up against those who donât want to hear it. You might be witnessing to the truth by taking a stand against a business practice you arenât comfortable with. You can bet that wonât be popular. You might be witnessing to the truth by refusing to allow your children to participate in sports when it conflicts with coming to church on Sunday, that wonât be popular either. Whenever we exercise our ministry as prophets, we are certain to run up against people who are hard of face and obstinate of heart, but our call is the same as Ezekielâs: witness anyway.
And second, we need to recognize that there are prophets among us. And thatâs hard too because prophets can be a real pain. None of us wants to be confronted when weâre straying from the right way. None of us wants to hear the truth about ourselves or others when weâve been blocking it out. None of us wants to be called out of our comfort zone and have to extend ourselves to reach out in new ways or meet the needs of those weâd rather ignore. But prophets insist that we do all those things.
Itâs harder still when we know those prophets. They might be our spouses, our parents, our children, our best friends, and because they love us they will witness the truth to us. But how ready are we to hear and respond to that truth when we are called to it? Wouldnât we too want to dismiss the carpenterâs son â or daughter â the one whose parents or sisters or brothers live with us, the one we have watched grow up, the one who shares our life with us? Who are they to be witnessing to the truth anyway? Thatâs the kind of thing Jesus was dealing with in his home town.
Itâs like the Procrustean bed from Greek mythology. The mythical figure Procrustes was a son of Poseidon and a bandit from Attica, with a stronghold in the hills outside Eleusis. There, he had an iron bed into which he invited every passerby to lie down. If the guest proved too tall, he would amputate the excess length; victims who were too short were stretched on the rack until they were long enough. Nobody ever fit the bed exactly because it was secretly adjustable: Procrustes would stretch or shrink it upon sizing his victims from afar. Procrustes continued his reign of terror until he was captured by Theseus, who âfittedâ Procrustes to his own bed and cut off his head and feet. And so a Procrustean bed is any kind of arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is enforced. We might be a lot like Procrustes when we refuse to admit that people among us are prophetic, when we refuse to hear the truth from them.
And here is a very important truth, the truth that I think we are being asked to take away from todayâs readings: the prophetic ministry continues among us. There are times when we will be called to hear the prophets, and times when we will be called to be the prophets. Neither task is an easy one: the truth is very often difficult to deal with, no matter what side of it we are on. But honoring the truth is the only way we are going to get to be with Jesus who himself is the way, the truth and the life. So it is the vocation of us Christian disciples to constantly seek the truth, proclaiming it when necessary, hearing and responding to it when called upon, but always to be open to it.
Ezekiel says at the beginning of todayâs first reading, âAs the LORD spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet.â We might be ready to skip over that detail but I think we need to dwell on it a bit because itâs important. The truth is a heavy thing, and very often can flatten us. It might seem to crush the prophet who has to bear it or even knock the wind out of the one who has to hear it. But it doesnât go away. We are given the truth, and the strength of the Spirit who picks us up and puts us on our feet. So we prophets can depend on the strength of the Spirit to bear the news, and we hearers can depend on the grace of the Spirit to receive the news and heed its call. The prophetic word is difficult, but our God never leaves us to bear it alone.
In our second reading, it is Saint Paul who makes the call so plain to us. He was afflicted with that thorn in the flesh. Maybe the thorn was the call to witness to the truth as he so often was. It wouldnât go away, but God did give him the grace to bear it. And the words he heard from God are the words we prophets and hearers of the prophets need to know today: âMy grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.â
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Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Knowing where a person is from is a Scriptural way of labeling that person. So maybe we too have ways of “knowing where people are from” and we label them according to race, or parentage, or upbringing, or whatever. We are especially quick to label and write off those who would challenge us, just like the just one was âbesetâ in todayâs first reading. We have to be very careful not to write people off â regardless if they are different from us, or are troublesome, or are challenging to us, because in doing so we write off Jesus himself, and turn our back once again on the words he would speak to us.
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