Sunday, January 31, 2021

Choosing the Way of Prophecy

 


Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

30-31 January – St. Mary’s in Salem

 

Dt. 18: 15-20

1Cor. 7:32-35

Mk 1:21-28

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        As we just heard in today’s Gospel of Mark:

        “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

Jesus is acting with sovereignty. He is calling the enemy (Satan) to step down. He is vanquishing the power of evil in the lives of real people. One of the great challenges of life as a Catholic today is identifying the players in the struggle for Christ and His Church, understanding how the sides line up and what are the key battles for the salvation of the life of the world which are being fought.

        It is odd that the people listening to Jesus there in the synagogue were so unfamiliar with the longstanding role of the prophet’s teaching for the guidance of God’s Chosen People. The prophet by the divine will has always had to prove his credentials, but if he did, then by God’s will he was the authority for Israel. This is the state of affairs in Israel and in the Church from the time of Moses in the desert all the way to the coming of Jesus, the promised Messiah. The notion of the role of the prophet in Israel, as we just heard in the first reading, goes way back in history to the time of Moses and the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. You wonder if those people who were scandalized by Jesus had ever read that passage from the Book of Deuteronomy. You wonder too if they knew the history of their own people forged as the Chosen People of God through Moses, during 40 years of wandering in the desert. You wonder if those people who heard Jesus in the synagogue, who witnessed him casting out demons, you wonder if they had any faith in God’s power to act then and now in the midst of His people.

Back at the time of the Exodus, God in the desert had spoken not only through Moses but directly to His People. With His thundering and majestic appearance on Mount Sinai, God had scared the living daylights out of them. They begged the God of Hosts for a prophet instead, a man like them, to communicate God’s word and the Lord Almighty agreed to their request. He agreed to go easy on them. We see God’s promise fulfilled in the sending of His only begotten Son, Jesus, truly God and yet a man like us in all things but sin.

        Prophecy, authoritative teaching, teaching with power is what has always securely guided God’s People. God has never abandoned His people; we have always been able to know just what we are about. After Moses and Joshua, the military leader, who were the judges if not a mix between heroes in battle and prophets who spoke with authority to the people on God’s behalf? As great as Israel’s kings were, they were all flanked and corrected by prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. Priests certainly had their role to play among God’s people, but authoritative power amongst God’s people was always shouldered by the prophets, people of true sanctity, who spoke in the name of the Lord.

        If I had a bone to pick with people in the Church today, it would be that just like those folk back in the synagogue, who witnessed the authoritative teaching of Jesus, so these people do not seem to get it. They feign being scandalized when the Church points out to them the straight and narrow way which they are to follow.   Too often they do not understand where true authority in the Church lies. They deny that it is the prophet, not the priest or the king, not the democratically elected official, the university professor or the so-called “self-made man”, no, it is the one who teaches with authority in God’s name, that is the prophet, who commands obedience. The same is true in both the Old Testament and the New, God never leaves His people without witnesses who teach in His name. Some of these prophets, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta or Padre Pio, were quite popular and were approved as authorities already during their lifetime. Some, like Edith Stein or Maximillian Kolbe, were accredited as true prophets by their martyrdom for their faith in the Lord Jesus, in whose name they taught.  

        “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

        Prophecy: teaching with authority! That is what Jesus did and that is what His Mystical Body the Church is called to do. To command! And yet, how common is it for us to experience people claiming to be Catholic and yet questioning at every turn the Church who speaks in God’s name.

        Can we give people, especially authorities, a break when they are skeptical about prophets, when they dismiss the Church’s teaching, let us say on moral questions, like the right to life of the unborn? No! Such behavior is unacceptable; it cannot be justified. God reigns supreme and no one can be exempted from His command. To profess belief in God cannot be separated from an unconditional submission to His Son, Jesus Christ. The Crucified One, the Risen and Glorious Christ continues to speak to us, to direct us through His Church.

        Granted, we have people in positions of authority in the Church, who would pass themselves off as prophets, but who do not have the credentials. They are to a greater or lesser degree possessed by unclean spirits. By their fruits you will know them. It is the Lord Jesus Himself and those speaking prophecy in union with Him who require our allegiance. No one gets off the hook or is excused. Everyone is called to submit to Christ.

Certainly, there are people who did not have the benefit of a good Catholic upbringing, but even they cannot be justified in their denial of Christ’s authority over them. Charity (God’s love for all of us, every one of us, His children) urges us to seek to draw all to the fullness of truth, of life and of grace in Christ. Not even the tragedies of a lifetime can be the excuse which could put us off from Christ. The Lord will not abandon us. My challenge is to reform my life such that Christ shines in me for the sake of the life of the world.

Let your challenge this week be one of seeking to repent of sin and to identify more closely with the prophetic teaching of Christ in His Church. We need to move to the right side in this fight, for our own sake and for the sake of all whom we love.

Praised be Jesus Christ!


PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI


No comments:

Post a Comment