Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: prophets

  • The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!

    When we think about prophets and prophecy, I think our minds always take us to ancient days. All the prophets we tend to think about 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. 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 in a new light, and to be open to the fact that there are many more prophets than we can think of right away, prophets that are a bit more contemporary than Moses and Elijah and all the others.

    For Moses, prophecy was a huge task. He bore the responsibility of bringing God’s message of salvation to a people who had become used to living without it. He was to inaugurate the covenant between God and a people who had largely forgotten about God, or certainly thought God had forgotten about them. His prophetic burden was great, but God 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 – Eldad and Medad – were missing from the group during the ceremony, but the spirit was given to them anyway. But 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, “Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!”

    Moses’ 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 God’s people knew God well enough to prophesy in God’s name? What if all of us who claim to follow God could speak out for God’s concern for the needy, the marginalized and the dispossessed? What if every single one of us, when facing a decision, would immediately consider what God wants in that moment? The world would certainly be a much different place. Joshua’s concern was that the rules be followed. Moses’ concern was that God’s work would be done.

    And so there’s a rather obvious parallel in the first part of today’s Gospel. This time it’s John who is all bent out of shape. Someone was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and even worse, whoever it was was apparently successful! Jesus, of course, does not share John’s concern. Jesus’ vision of salvation was bigger than John’s. If demons are being cast out in Jesus’ 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!

    I think the point here that we need to get is that true prophecy, and really all ministry, doesn’t always fit into a neat little box, certainly not our neat little box. During the rite of baptism, the person who has just been baptized is anointed with the sacred Chrism oil – the 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. Not only that, but we should be speaking the word of the Lord in everything we say and do!

    What I got to thinking about as I re-read these scriptures in preparation for preaching today was, what if everyone was a prophet? What would that look like? What would it be like if we were all true to our baptismal call to be a prophet in today’s world? First of all, if we were all used to the fact that even the most ordinary of people could carry the prophetic message, we might not be so offended by it. Just as the prophets of old were ignored, or worse, beaten or killed for their message, that same thing happens all the time today. In some areas of the world, those who prophesy are considered so much of a threat that they are put to death for their beliefs. And even here, where we have those freedoms, people are so offended by true prophecy that they consider it a personal attack and decide that people who bear witness to the truth are considered hateful. Wouldn’t it be nice if that whole situation didn’t exist, because people were used to looking for the prophetic message?

    Then, of course, having heard the prophetic message, all of us prophets would be eager to carry it out. The poor would be taken care of, people would live and do business with integrity, governments would be truly taking care of the common good rather than special interests, human dignity and respect for all life would be accepted as common practice, real peace would be not just a possibility, but a reality.

    Friends, we have to stop being afraid of the prophetic message, because prophets might be everywhere; they should be everywhere! 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 neighbor who seems to always want to talk our ear off. At the basic level, one of the most important questions that arises in today’s 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 challenge us to be better people and live better lives? I challenge you all to give that some thought and prayer this week; I know I will.

    Prophecy is a huge responsibility, and we are all tasked with it. Being open to that prophecy is a challenge to humility. 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 God’s spirit, to be courageous enough to speak the word they have been given by God, 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 and carry it out. Be the prophecy you want to see in the world.

    Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings
    Mass for the school children.

    Have you ever thought that everyone in the whole world was against you? Sometimes it seems that way, for sure. We all go through times like that.  Of course, it’s not true; there are always people who believe in you.  But if you’ve ever felt like it was true, you’re not alone: we’ve all been there some time or another in our lives. 

    Maybe someone was telling lies about you and trying to get others to work against you, or maybe they were looking for any time you did the slightest thing wrong, or messed up in any way, so they could act all superior or get you in trouble. Or maybe they even sabotage you or tell stores about you behind your back.  It’s frustrating when that happens.  So since we’ve all been there, I think we might understand a little of how the prophet Jeremiah, King David, and Jesus may have felt in today’s readings and psalm.

    Jeremiah was one of the Old Testament prophets, and a prophet’s job is never easy. Nobody wants to hear what they don’t want to hear.  People don’t want to hear that they are wrong, and they don’t want others to tell them what to do. The prophets had to tell the people what God wanted and how God wanted them to live, and they didn’t find that welcome at all.  It can be difficult to stand up for what’s right.  So for Jeremiah, things are getting dangerous: people disliked what he was saying so much that they wanted him dead.  The same is true for Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.  Jesus now is rapidly approaching the cross; it’s almost the hour for him to give his life.

    And so the psalm today is kind of the prayer of both of them, and really all of those who are suffering at the hands of an enemy.  King David in the psalm 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: God never leaves us alone in our troubles.  Jeremiah writes, “For he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!”  King David takes consolation in the fact that “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”  And for Jesus, well, his time was coming close, but it 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? Or maybe we even try to get back at those who are attacking us. Those last two options never ever work.  If we don’t turn to God, we will sooner or later find those waves overwhelming us, because there is always a limit to our own power, a limit to what we can do all by ourselves. 

    But God never expects us to do the right thing all alone.  He knows that it’s hard for us to stand up for what’s right, to do the right thing when everyone seems to be doing something else, to speak up for those who are struggling when everyone else is making fun of them.  God always expects us to do the right thing, of course: that’s what he made us for.  But he doesn’t expect us to do the right thing on our own.  He will give us the power to stand strong in the midst of trouble – we just have to ask.  If we do things on our own, we have no one to turn to when things go wrong or when things get tough.  But if we turn to God, even if things don’t improve on our own timetable, we will always find refuge and safety in our God: there will be strength to get through, and we will never be alone.

  • Saint John of the Cross

    Saint John of the Cross

    Today’s readings

    Today at Mass we hear from three prophets.  

    A prophet, of course, is a person who helps us to see God.  And during Advent these prophets help us to see God coming to be born in us.  And we have to admit: lots of times we don’t see God.  We’re either too busy to notice God, or too wrapped up in ourselves to care about God, or just completely disinterested in the whole notion of God.  Sometimes we just don’t want to see God because we would rather be doing what we want to do and not what’s best for ourselves or others.  So it is good we have Advent and the prophets to help us see what we need to see.

    We hear about three prophets today.  The first is the prophet Elijah, and we heard of him in today’s first reading.  His words were strong ones that zealously shepherded the Israelites through temptation and evil.  His prophecy was confirmed by mighty deeds, right up until the time he was take up in a whirlwind.  He was believed to be returning one day, and even up to the present day at major Jewish feasts, families will leave an empty place setting at the table for Elijah.  Jesus tells us that the return of Elijah was in the person of Saint John the Baptist, and he is the second prophet we hear about today, in the Gospel reading.

    The third prophet we hear from today is Saint John of the Cross, whose feast we celebrate today.  Saint John of the Cross was a Carmelite friar who was called by God and by his friend, Saint Teresa of Avila, to reform the Carmelite Order.  The Carmelites had relaxed some of their rules over time, and had basically turned away from the life that had been envisioned when the Order started.  Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila founded a reformed Carmelite Order, and Saint John suffered for it terribly.  In those days, religious affairs were all tied up in the government of the nation, and so there was a lot of politics.  People didn’t agree with Saint John, so he was taken prisoner for over nine months.  Even when he was released, his fellow friars who didn’t agree with him went around to all the monasteries making trouble for him.  He was oppressed for his preaching of reform almost until the day he died.

    Each of these prophets had been given a message by God.  Elijah and Saint John the Baptist called the people of Israel to turn back to God.  Saint John of the Cross called his fellow Carmelites to turn back to the ideals on which their Order was founded.  All of them suffered for their witness to the truth.  Prophets don’t usually have an easy life.  But if we will get past the politics and get over ourselves, we might hear from them a call that leads us back to God who will make us happier than we’ve ever been.

    During Advent, we remember that Christ is always near to us, and we remember that we must always turn back to him and let him be born in our hearts once again, stronger than ever.  And so during Advent, we hear from the great prophets like Elijah, John the Baptist, and John of the Cross who are calling us to turn back to God and to prepare a way for Christ in our lives, in our hearts, and in our world.

  • Saturday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s dangerous to be a prophet.  It’s dangerous because nobody wants to really hear the truth.  Both Jeremiah and Saint John the Baptist find that out very clearly in today’s Scripture readings.  Both of them insisted on proclaiming the truth, and both of them ultimately paid for it with their lives, although Jeremiah was protected in today’s first reading.

    The thing we need to take with us this morning is that we are all called to be prophets.  We are all called to speak the truth.  And usually that truth won’t be welcome.  But we have to be people of integrity and say what the Lord puts on our hearts.  Maybe it will be received and maybe it won’t, but we will have at least fulfilled the call we received at baptism when we, like our Lord, were anointed as priest, prophet and king.

    It may be difficult to speak the truth, but God is faithful.  If we do what he asks us to do, he will walk with us and never leave us alone.  Being prophets is a dangerous business, but as the Psalmist tells us today, “For the LORD hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”

  • Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Why is the human heart so much opposed to hearing the truth and acting on it? I remember as a child I used to hate it when my parents would tell me something and turn out to be right. If the truth be told, I probably still struggle with that a little today. Who wants to hear the hard truth and then find out that it’s absolutely right? The pride of our hearts so often prevents the prophet from performing his or her ministry.

    The message of Lent, though, is that the prophets – all of them – whether they be Scriptural prophets, or those who spoke the truth to us because they want the best for us – all of these prophets are right. And our task during Lent has to be to give up whatever pride in us refuses to hear the voice of the prophet or refuses to accept the prophetic message, and instead turn to the Lord and rejoice in the truth.

    The prophets of our native land – those prophets who are closest to us – are the ones we least want to hear. Because they know the right buttons to push, they know our sinfulness, our weakness, and our brokenness. And we desperately want to avoid being confronted with all that failure. Yet if we would hear them, then maybe just like Naaman, we would come out of the river clean and ready to profess our faith in the only God once again.

    Athirst is my soul for the living God – that is what the Psalmist prays today. And that is the true prayer of all of our hearts. All we have to do is get past the obstacles of pride and let those prophets show us the way to him. Then we would never thirst again.

  • Saint John of the Cross

    Saint John of the Cross

    Today’s readings

    Today at Mass we hear from three prophets.  A prophet is a person who helps us to see God.  And during Advent these prophets help us to see God coming to be born in us.

    And we have to admit: lots of times we don’t see God.  We’re either too busy to notice God, or too wrapped up in ourselves to care about God, or just completely disinterested in the whole notion of God.  Sometimes we just don’t want to see God because we would rather be doing what we want to do and not what’s best for ourselves or others.  God can see through all of that, and prophets help us to see through it too.

    We hear from three prophets today.  The first is the prophet Isaiah, and we heard from him in today’s first reading.  The people of Israel had turned away from God a whole lot.  God often made a new covenant with them, and then after a while, they would lose interest and get distracted and turn away from God all over again.  So in today’s reading, Isaiah is trying to wake them up once again.  He tells them if they had stayed on the right path, the path God marked out for them when he made a covenant with them, if they had followed his commands, they would have been blessed by good fortune, many descendants, and a rich land and nation that would never have been destroyed.  It’s too late for that now, but maybe by seeing what caused their misfortune, they can turn back to God and let him heal them.  Which is something God is always longing to do.

    The second prophet we hear from today is St. John the Baptist, and we hear about him in today’s Gospel reading.  Jesus is frustrated with people of Israel – again! – because just about nothing could get their attention.  When John the Baptist went around fasting and staying away from strong drink, the people thought he was weird and couldn’t relate to his message to repent of their sins.  But when Jesus came along asking them to repent also, he ate and drank just as they did, so they judged him harshly and wouldn’t listen to him either.  They always had an excuse, and of course it was never their fault.  Kind of sounds like us sometimes, doesn’t it?  Basically, no matter who was calling them to reform their lives and no matter how they proclaimed that message, the people wanted to do what they wanted to do, and nothing was going to persuade them to change.

    The third prophet we hear from today is Saint John of the Cross, whose feast we celebrate today.  Saint John of the Cross was a Carmelite friar, a kind of monk who was vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience.  He was called by God and by his friend, Saint Teresa of Avila, to reform the Carmelite Order.  The Carmelites had relaxed some of their rules over time, and had basically turned away from the life that had been envisioned when the Order started.  Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila founded a reformed Carmelite Order, and Saint John suffered for it terribly.  In those days, religious affairs were all tied up in the government of the nation, and so there was a lot of politics.  People didn’t agree with Saint John, so he was taken prisoner for over nine months.  Even when he was released, his fellow friars who didn’t agree with him went around to all the monasteries making trouble for him.  He was oppressed for his preaching of reform almost until the day he died.

    Each of these prophets had been given a message by God.  Isaiah and Saint John the Baptist called the people of Israel to turn back to God.  Saint John of the Cross called his fellow Carmelites to turn back to the ideals on which their Order was founded.  All of them suffered for their witness to the truth.  Prophets don’t usually have an easy life.  But if we will get past the politics and get over ourselves, we might hear from them a call that leads us back to God who will make us happier than we’ve ever been.

    During Advent, we remember that Christ is always near to us, and we remember that we must always turn back to him and let him be born in our hearts once again, stronger than ever.  And so during Advent, we hear from the great prophets like Isaiah, John the Baptist, and John of the Cross who are calling us to turn back to God and to prepare a way for Christ in our lives, in our hearts, and in our world.

    Today in our Psalm we hear what God is trying to tell us through all these prophets:

    Blessed the one who follows not
    the counsel of the wicked
    Nor walks in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the company of the insolent,
    But delights in the law of the LORD
    and meditates on his law day and night.

    And we will be happy too, if we hear God’s call through the prophets and follow in his ways.

  • Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate a feast that is a bit unusual for us.  First of all, it’s a saint’s feast day, and saints’ days don’t usually take precedence over a Sunday celebration.  Secondly, whenever we do celebrate a saint’s day, it is usually celebrated on the feast of their death, not their birth.  But today we do gather to celebrate the birth of a saint, Saint John the Baptist, and the fact that we’re celebrating his birth and his day at all on this Sunday points to the fact that St. John the Baptist had a very special role to play in the life of Christ.  In fact, the only other saint for whom we celebrate a birthday is the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that tells us something about how important John the Baptist is.

    Just as for Jesus, we don’t know the precise day John the Baptist was born.  So the feast of their Nativities – their births – was a tradition developed by the early Church. The dates the Church selected are significant.  Jesus’ birthday was placed around the time of the winter solstice, mostly to counteract pagan festivals of the coming of winter.  John the Baptist’s birthday was then placed around the time of the summer solstice for similar reasons.  But there’s more to it even than that.  In the Gospel of John, there is a passage where John the Baptist says of himself and Jesus, “I must decrease, he must increase.”  So John’s birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become shorter, and Jesus’ birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become longer.  John the Baptist must decrease, Jesus must increase.

    Today’s readings have a lot to do with who the prophet is.  St. John the Baptist was the last prophet of the old order, and his mission was to herald the coming of Jesus Christ who is himself the new order.  Tradition holds that prophets were created for their mission, that their purpose was laid out while they were yet to be born.  Isaiah, one of the great prophets of the old order, tells us of his commissioning in our first reading today.  He says, “The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”  The rest of the reading tells us of his mission, a mission of hardship, but one of being compelled to speak the word of god as a sharp-edged sword.  His calling began as a call to preach to his own people, but by the end of the reading, it is clear that that commission became a call to preach to every nation on earth.

    Isaiah says that he was given his name while in his mother’s womb.  The same was true of St. John the Baptist, whose name was given to Zechariah and Elizabeth by the Angel Gabriel.  There’s a dubious story in my own family’s history that my mother had my name picked out from the time she was twelve.  But it’s pretty hard for me to believe that a young Italian woman would have picked the name Patrick Michael for her son.  But that’s how the story goes.  Names have meaning.  Maybe you know what your name means.  I looked mine up this week and found that Patrick means “nobleman,” so if you feel like bowing when you see me, it seems like that would be appropriate!  But far more significant are the names of the prophets we encounter in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  Isaiah means “Yahweh is salvation,” which pretty much encompassed the meaning of Isaiah’s mission, proclaiming salvation to the Israelites who were oppressed in exile.  The name given to the Baptist, John, means “God has shown favor.”  And that was in fact the message of his life.  He came to pave the way for Jesus Christ, who was the favor of God shown to the whole human race.

    The point is, these men were created for their prophetic calling.  That’s true for us too.  All of us who have been baptized have a prophetic calling that came before we were ever born.  God created us for something special.  He created us to be with him, he created us to follow him, he created us to draw other people to him.  This means that, according to our abilities, our vocation and station in life, we were meant to serve God in some way that God might be glorified and that others may come to know him.

    During these couple of weeks, we have been asked to observe a fortnight of religious freedom.  As our nation’s bishops point out, religious freedom is one of our first and most cherished freedoms.  It was largely in pursuit of religious freedom that our nation’s forefathers came to this great land, and in defense of that freedom that they fought and died.  But now, many issues have put that freedom in danger.  The so-called HHS mandate is kind of the banner issue on the religious freedom front.  The HHS mandate requires all employers to pay for birth control regardless of whether it is against their moral teachings, as it is for us.

    But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Another sad assault on religious freedom has been the requirement of any adoption placement agency to place children for adoption with people in same-sex unions.  Since our religion forbids this practice, we have been unable to comply, and so we have been pushed out of the adoption process, something that has been an extension of our acts of charity since this country began.

    The essence of the issue is that freedom of religion is now being defined in a very narrow way, which amounts to freedom of worship.  One is free to worship in any way one chooses, but must obey the law in all other things.  Let’s bracket for the moment the obvious objection that such a narrow definition was never intended by our founding fathers.  More important is that, for us, worship is not something we can separate from our daily living.  When we are sent out to “go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life,” we are just beginning to worship.  What we do in our daily life is our real worship, not just the hour we’re here on Sunday.

    So our worship of God may indeed call us to speak against issues of the day, or to take in an adoptive or foster child to share God’s love, or any number of charitable acts, and our Church should have the freedom to pursue those according to our moral teachings.  That’s the essence of religious freedom, and that is what we are seeking to defend.  The prophetic call in all of us absolutely must speak up for what we believe as a Church and preach the Gospel by the way that we live our lives.

    We live in a society that is all about protecting and promoting ourselves.  Saint John the Baptist would have us promote Jesus instead.  That’s what he was about.  As it was for him, so it is for us: we must decrease, Jesus must increase.

  • Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Why is the human heart so opposed to hearing the truth and acting on it?  I remember as a child I used to hate it when my parents would tell me something and turn out to be right.  If the truth be told, I probably still struggle with that a little today.  Who wants to hear the hard truth and then find out that it’s absolutely right?  The pride of our hearts so often prevents the prophet from performing his or her ministry.

    The message of Lent, though, is that the prophets – all of them – whether they be Scriptural prophets, or those who spoke the truth to us because they want the best for us – are speaking truth.  The prophets of Scripture speak Truth to us in an elevated way, of course.  And our task during Lent has to be to give up whatever pride in us refuses to hear the voice of the prophet or refuses to accept the prophetic message, and instead turn to the Lord and rejoice in the truth.

    The prophets of our native land – those prophets who are closest to us – are the ones we least want to hear.  Because they know the right buttons to push, they know our sinfulness, our weakness, and our brokenness.  That’s how it was for the people of Jesus’ home town.  But we also desperately want to avoid being confronted with truth.  Yet if we would open our ears to hear and our hearts to understand, then maybe just like Naaman, we would come out of the river clean and ready to profess our faith in the only God once again.

    Athirst is my soul for the living God – that is what the Psalmist prays today.  And that is the true prayer of all of our hearts.  All we have to do is get past the obstacles of pride and let those prophets show us the way to him.  Then we would never thirst again.

  • Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Why is the human heart so much opposed to hearing the truth and acting on it? I remember as a child I used to hate it when my parents would tell me something and turn out to be right. If the truth be told, I probably still struggle with that a little today. Who wants to hear the hard truth and then find out that it’s absolutely right? The pride of our hearts so often prevents the prophet from performing his or her ministry.

    The message of Lent, though, is that the prophets – all of them – whether they be Scriptural prophets, or those who spoke the truth to us because they want the best for us – all of these prophets are right. And our task during Lent has to be to give up whatever pride in us refuses to hear the voice of the prophet or refuses to accept the prophetic message, and instead turn to the Lord and rejoice in the truth.

    The prophets of our native land – those prophets who are closest to us – are the ones we least want to hear. Because they know the right buttons to push, they know our sinfulness, our weakness, and our brokenness. And we desperately want to avoid being confronted with all that failure. Yet if we would hear them, then maybe just like Naaman, we would come out of the river clean and ready to profess our faith in the only God once again.

    Athirst is my soul for the living God – that is what the Psalmist prays today. And that is the true prayer of all of our hearts. All we have to do is get past the obstacles of pride and let those prophets show us the way to him. Then we would never thirst again.

  • Monday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    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?