Today’s readings invite us to ponder a critical, yet occasionally
uncomfortable element of our Catholic faith — the prophetic role of Christ and
his disciples.
A prophet is one who speaks to the world words that come from
God. A prophet proclaims eternal truths about God and His loving and wise plans
for us. A prophet applies the eternal truths, through the guidance of the Holy
Spirit and the virtue of prudence, to the specific events and demands of the
present day.
The prophetic wisdom of God is not always easy to embrace. Even when
we are making efforts to know and love God, we often run into situations where
the truth of the great prophet Isaiah speaks to us: “For
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts” (Is 55:8-9).
At certain crossroads in our lives,
God’s plans and ways for us are hard to comprehend. They may be veiled in
mystery that we only discover at a later moment in time. They may be the fruit
of a very deep wisdom that we never fully grasp. They may state clearly a moral
truth that I really do not want to live at this moment in my life.
For many people in our world today, a
good portion of these truths may seem absurd and completely out of touch with
their perspective on reality. In today’s Gospel, the people of Jesus’ hometown
of Nazareth respond poorly to the prophetic words from Our Lord. The Gospel
writer Luke recounts: “They were filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out
of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been
built, to hurl him down headlong.” As a prophet, Jesus was persecuted, hunted
and, in the end, nailed to a tree.
The sting for us is that, if we are
living our faith authentically, which involves speaking out in the name of the
Lord, then we should expect harassment as well. Through our Baptism, we are
given the grace and privilege of sharing in Jesus’ priestly, prophetic and
kingly office. Our Lord has chosen, in his wisdom, to rely upon us to assist
him in proclaiming the Good News to our world, including its prophetic elements
that often rub up against our present-day culture and its values. Recall Our
Lord’s words: “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater
than his master.’ If they persecuted me,
they will persecute you” (Jn 15: 20).
Am I willing to be persecuted with and
for Jesus?
An additional word needs to be said
about our attitude and our approach to the prophetic element of our discipleship.
It must be governed by charity.
Let us be prophets filled with love.
When faced with the broken and false values of our world, let us be clear,
firm, and undeterred in our efforts to live, teach, and defend the Gospel way
of life. However, let us do so in a Christ-like fashion, with a heart that is
governed by the love of Christ.
When we find ourselves in those moments
when we need to be a prophet, let us never do so out of anger or with an
attitude of superiority. In fact, this aspect of our Christian life needs to be
governed completely by the profound words of St. Paul: “Love is patient, love
is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not
rude, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrong-doing but
rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
As disciples of Christ, let us pray
with great fervor for the grace to know Jesus personally, love him dearly and
serve him obediently.
Fr. Peterson is director of mission and development
for the Youth Apostles.