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Dear Parish Family,
At their Baptism, every believer becomes Prophet, Priest and King. Whenever someone asks you to pray for them, they are acknowledging your role as a Priest. Whenever we care for the Earth and its wellbeing we assume the role of ‘kingship’ by becoming good stewards of God’s creation. But the role of being a ‘Prophet’ is one that we tend to shirk. Our understanding of Prophets gathered from the Scripture throws our attention to being in the limelight. We are also suspicious of self-appointed prophets. Biblical warrant for this suspicion lies in the fact that the typical prophet in Scripture is profoundly reluctant to accept the appointment. Whence the sarcastic label “self-anointed prophet” applied to anyone who too readily claims such a role. In most biblical contexts, the term prophet means “forth-teller” rather than “fore-teller.” That is, the designated person is asked to speak to the community in the name of God. Sometimes, indeed, the message does include reference to the future, but mainly it is a message the community needs to hear regarding how it ought to alter its way of proceeding in the present. In brief being a ‘prophet’ means being the ‘conscience of the society.’
In our appropriate restraint to name or claim to be prophets, we more readily apply the term to dead messengers (Martin Luther King, Pope John XXIII, Dorothy Day) than to living ones. And yet, our Scriptures invite us to take the role of prophet with utmost seriousness—regarding Jesus, the apostles, and ourselves. Jeremiah was for the early Church the archetypal prophet, so much so that language from his vocation story (this Sunday's First Reading) is used to describe our archetypal apostle, St. Paul; he uses Jeremiah's call to describe his own vocation (Gal 1:15), and Luke does the same in Acts 26:17. The Gospel reading shows Jesus placing his mission in the prophetic tradition of Elijah and Elisha.
What can give perspective to any application of the role of prophet to ourselves or others is Paul's reflection on the place of love as the “way” of exercising all the gifts. When we feel called to confront our little part of the world in the name of God—that is, according to an informed conscience—it must be motivated by love. Otherwise our action is empty and our perceived role self-appointed and counter-productive. I request you to remember me in your prayers (using your priestly power) as I go through my surgery and be assured of my prayers for you and your family.
Fr. Tom Kunnel. C.O.