Sunday, November 9, 2014

Everyday Prophets In Our Midst

 
One commenter who was walking in the Way called Kiko Arguello a "prophet." I disagreed with this anonymous person.  However, after much discussion with the anonymous poster, I conceded.  This is one of the reasons why I favor honest dialogue and free expression.  One can actually learn from another but only by listening to what the other person was saying.  

At any rate, I listened to what the anonymous poster who was walking in the Way said and actually found nothing wrong with his/her statements.  He/she was able to point out in the Bible where it says that we are called to be prophets, so I conceded.  My love for scripture had taught me that Church doctrine never contradicts sacred scripture, so I conceded by telling the anonymous poster that he/she is correct.  Today, I found this article from the National Catholic Reporter dated July 12, 2012.  It is a homiliy given by a Catholic priest in Michigan.  The homily is worth reading:
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Most of us probably do not remember our Baptism because, of course, we were almost all of us infants when we were baptized, but there is a very important part of that ceremony of Baptism that we should reflect on regularly. After the priest has poured the water on the person to be baptized, and through that beautiful symbol has taken that person through being buried in the death of Jesus, and rising to new life in Jesus, after that the priest, deacon or minister anoints the person with holy chrism, and says, “As Jesus was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so may you live always as a member of His body.”

In other words, may you be priest, prophet and king like Jesus. If we listen to today’s readings, we’ll learn something about especially that role of prophet. Not many of us would think of ourselves as being called to be prophets, but in fact, we are. It’s part of our carrying on the work of Jesus who was a prophet. We think of Jesus as a wonderworker, the healer, the compassionate, the healing person who has drawn all people through Himself through love, but we don’t think very often of Jesus the Prophet.
 
Today, we will explore that and see what it means for Him and other prophets, and for us who are called through our Baptism, to be prophets. First of all, we ask ourselves what is a prophet? Sometimes, I suppose, we’re caught up with the idea that a prophet is someone who predicts the future, who can foresee what is going to come in the future. That really isn’t what we mean by a prophet, by those God calls to be prophets. It has nothing to do with predicting the future. A prophet is one who speaks on behalf of God.

That is what a prophet does. A prophet is called to be one who speaks as God speaks, bringing the message of God into our world, into the human family, into our lives. Clearly, that is what Jesus did. In our first lesson today, however, we also look at other prophets like Ezekiel. This lesson that we heard from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel tells about the time when the chosen people had refused to listen to another prophet, Jeremiah, who had warned them against entering into military alignment with other nations and carrying on war.

They refused to listen. They got caught up in a war and they were totally defeated. It was a disaster. Jerusalem was overwhelmed and destroyed. The people were carried off into exile, and Ezekiel was carried off with them. He was inspired, filled with God’s spirit, to be a prophet in their midst, trying to help them to understand how they had gone wrong, to repent of their evil, to come back to God. Ezekiel was sent to preach to them. This incident shows us something that is so important, that God will always send a prophet.

As we hear at the end of that lesson, God is faithful to God’s love for God’s people, and will always send a prophet to speak for God to draw the people back to God. Sometimes, the people will not listen, and so, we hear God saying through Ezekiel, “I will always send the prophet, and they will know that a prophet has spoken in their midst, even if they refuse.” If the people are unfaithful, God always remains faithful, and always preaches to us through His prophets.

Of course, there have been other prophets. John the Baptist -- Jesus said about him, “What did you go out into the desert to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, more than a prophet.” John the Baptist was the one who spoke on behalf of God, and Jesus said about John the Baptist, “No greater person among all of humankind. There is no greater person than John the Baptist who was a great prophet speaking on behalf of God.

Jesus comes into the midst of God’s people, into the midst of the human family to be the Prophet who not only speaks on behalf of God, but whose very presence, whose very life, whose very being is a message about God, a message enabling us to know God deeply by knowing Jesus. He is the Prophet that is God. Now all of us are also called to be prophets, and we must understand as Ezekiel did, that people may not listen. They may reject the prophet. Surely, that’s what we see happening in Nazareth.

The people couldn’t take Jesus as a Prophet. They were happy to see Him do some healing, and they thought of Him as a wonder worker, but for Him to speak on behalf of God, who is He? He’s a carpenter. They spoke in a very derogatory way about Jesus. “We know His family. They’re nobody. Why is He putting Himself up?” So they reject Him. Jesus, as Mark says, is astounded at the hardness of their hearts, and because they are not able to be open to Him, open to God, God’s love can’t touch them. So Jesus decides to leave there, but a Prophet has been in their midst as God promised.

As we look at the world around us and not only in the past, but in the present, too, we know that there have been many prophets whom God has sent. I suggest a couple that we’re probably very familiar with. I think everyone knows Mother Teresa. She was a prophet, not so much by what she said. She didn’t go around preaching, but her very life exemplified God’s love that includes everybody, especially the poor, the rejected, those that are thrust aside almost as worthless. She went among them. She brought healing -- not so much physical healing.

She did that by bringing the sisters into their midst and bringing that healing love of God, but her very life spoke God’s love for God’s people, that our God is a God of love who reaches out to all of us, but especially to the poor, the most rejected. That’s a powerful message about God that Mother Teresa preached by her very life. I also bring to your attention another woman prophet: Dorothy Day. She is not as well known as Mother Teresa, but one who has had a significant impact on the Church, especially in our country.

Some people would claim that Dorothy Day has been, in the history of the Church in the United States, the most outstanding of prophets. She started an organization or community, the Catholic Worker Community, people who live the radical teachings of the Gospel, who go among the poor and live among them, welcoming the poor into their homes through houses of hospitality, and who try to transform our world into the Reign of God by bringing the message of Jesus into our world.

One of the things that Dorothy Day did that was not well known, during the Second Vatican Council, when the Bishops at the Council were discussing the part of the document on the Church in the modern world about war and peace, she together with some others, met with a number of bishops and helped to influence their thinking about the need to issue a declaration condemning weapons of mass destruction. It’s the only place in all of the Vatican Council, in the document of the Church in the modern world, where there is a condemnation of weapons of mass destruction as being something totally evil that never could be justified.

That was prophecy, a God message proclaimed through the help of Dorothy Day and the others who were with her, but now through the Bishops of the world teaching, prophesying, speaking on behalf of God, giving us this message that we must turn away from war, and especially wars that bring about the destruction of innocent human lives. We must turn away from that. It’s a powerful message. I think that here, too, we discover for the most part we haven’t really been listening: not enough to Mother Teresa and not enough to Dorothy Day and the bishops of Vatican II.

We still find ourselves in a world where there are a vast majority of poor people who are neglected and pushed aside and ignored. In our own country, it’s getting to be a larger and larger number, while a few are getting richer and richer. We find ourselves embroiled in acts of violence and war, and the use of weapons that kill so many innocent people. So prophecy is still something that God is using. God is speaking to us through prophets, but like the people in Nazareth, like the people in exile in Babylonia, we do not listen well enough.

That is one of the things that we must reflect on today as we are instructed on prophets and prophecy, and our role as baptized members of the Body of Christ, to be a prophet as He. We must listen and reflect on do we listen? Are we really trying to hear God’s Word proclaimed by the prophets who are in our midst today, those who in some special way are proclaiming God’s word and the radical teachings of Jesus? Are we listening? Then, also, are we being the prophets we’re called to be?

Most of us would not think of ourselves as going out and preaching, proclaiming God’s Word from the housetops, so to speak, but we can do it in the way Mother Teresa did it: through our lives. We can be what we might call everyday prophets. As you heard at the beginning of the Liturgy today, my brother is dying. He probably will be dead within a matter of hours, at the most a couple of days, and as I reflect on his life, the life of his wife and their life together, I think of them and I’m hesitant to speak about my own family, but I feel close to all of you in this parish, so I feel like I can share in this way.

It’s sort of like St. Paul in the second lesson today. He didn’t really want to speak about himself, but he felt to his closest friends at Corinth he could open up his heart and speak about what was really in him. So in that way, I speak about my brother and his wife. This summer, they have completed 60 years of married life, really proclaiming God’s Word of love, which is what married people are called to do, to show that covenant love of God for God’s people, a love that is without limit, a love that is unconditional, a love that embraces all.

For 60 years, my brother and his wife have exemplified that love. Their children, seven of them and their spouses, and their children, they are a beautiful family, with the children and grandchildren experiencing the love of my brother and his wife, and being influenced by that love. They themselves are able to carry on this message of God’s love. So I think of my brother and his wife as everyday prophets. They heard the Word of God. They understood that the one commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you,” that they must live that commandment, and they have.

They are what I would call everyday prophets, and they are listened to by their children and grandchildren. It’s something beautiful when it happens like that. All of us are called to be prophets. We hear the Word of God. We hear Jesus proclaiming, “Love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this: to lay down your life for your friend,” and even to love your enemies -- we’ve all heard that message. We see it lived out by others around us who have been prophets in our midst.

So today, we must ask ourselves, are we going to leave this Church and understand more clearly that we are called to be a prophet, to follow Jesus the Prophet? We must pray that God will give us the ability to proclaim God’s Word wherever we are, not necessarily and most often not in words, but just to proclaim God’s way of love by the way we live out the Word of God.

[Homily given at St. Hilary, Redford, Mich.]

Everyday Prophets In Our Midst

Furthermore, this is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: 

CCC 783   Jesus Christ is the one whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and established as priest, prophet, and king. The whole People of God participates in these three offices of Christ and bears the responsibilities for mission and service that flow from them.208 

CCC 785  "The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office," above all in the supernatural sense of faith that belongs to the whole People, lay and clergy, when it "unfailingly adheres to this faith . . . once for all delivered to the saints,"210 and when it deepens its understanding and becomes Christ's witness in the midst of this world. 



16 comments:

  1. I remember watching the video when Kiko did the exorcism in China!

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    1. Dear Anonymous at 3:58 pm,

      I do not understand what you are trying to say here.

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    2. Kiko is considered a prophet, because he speaks for God. Pretty clear, read the homily above! Jesus was another prophet. Guess what, many people did not believe Him, just as the Jungle people and the critics do not believe Kiko. Do you see the parallel? A prophet is like Ezekiel or Isaiah. Moses is also called a prophet. Just as Moses led the people of God out of bondage from Egypt, Kiko is leading the modern faithful out of bondage from all sins of this age. I say the modern faithful because some are old fashioned and do not grasp new ideas. Kiko is a new spiritual leader. He is also old in a way, bringing back the devotion of the great prophets of the Old Testament! Why? Because this is the one thing that is missing from our age, a prophet who speaks for God! Now, we have this prophet by Kiko.

      Kiko is talking about God with authority. He is speaking for God. There are no prophets in the New Testament, some say, because they were replaced by the apostles. People assume we don't need more prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah at all, because of the apostolic succession. But this assumption is not true. Prophets are speaking for the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We still need that every day. Our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Kiko talks about Abraham because Abraham is our ancestral father in faith. If your faith is not like Abraham's faith then you are an idolator.

      Kiko announces salvation through Jesus Christ for all those who have the faith like Abraham. This is the good news! Don't even think about it if your faith is lacking. Then it is not mature but childish. Kiko teaches us to have strong faith like Abraham. Kiko brings the dawn of a new Millennium, a new awakening that we all belong to Abraham if our faith is strong. This is our pride. The Bible says Jesus is also in the lineage of Abraham. So this is the right thing to do! This is why we need a new prophet after 2000 years of silence to fill in the gap. This prophet for us, for people of modern Catholic faith, is nobody else but Kiko.

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    3. I would not go there Ernie and proclaim Kiko as a prophet. Prophets in in the context of the Jewish tradition/s are, as Heschel argues for the view of Hebrew prophets as receivers of the "Divine Pathos", of the wrath and sorrow of God over his nation that has forsaken him. In this view, prophets do not speak for God so much as they remind their audience of God's voice for the voiceless, the poor and oppressed.
      Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profane riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet's words.
      I have yet to hear in all the years i have been with the Way, Kiko to speak about social justice issues, liberation theology, the suffering of the masses, racial discrimination, gender and sexual discrimination in the church and workplace.

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    4. By gosh, Ernie! I am not surprised anymore of what you are saying. I am still kinda blown away by the boldness of "Ernie's gospel" that you put forward, as someone called this, but I at least start to see your direction. If this tells you anything, Chuck White cropped and clipped your post as something interesting. Whatever you think about Chuck, I can tell you, he would not crop and clip anything without reason. I mean serious reason.

      Now, to say anything about modernity, I guess you were completely misled. I don't know if your Arguello feels like representing modernity in the Catholic Church, but I seriously doubt he is in fact modern. Modernity has much more to do with social issues, as Isaias pointed out, with making justice on earth for everyone with equity, than turning back the clock of history and falling backwards into the spirit of Old Testament heroes like Abraham. I seriously recommend you to study the Letter to the Galatians by St Paul a bit so that you may learn a few things from him regarding bondage to the Law or our Lord Jesus' relation to Abraham.

      Ernie, seriously, are you a theologian talking like this? Because whet you say is heavy, extremely heavy on the soul of the believer. We believe in the Holy Trinity, the God in Three Persons. God is more than the just the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For us traditional believers, Jesus Christ is God. He cannot be a "prophet" only, because he is divine person. Just like the Holy Spirit, that was sent by Jesus Himself. It is His Holy Spirit. I will pray for you, Ernie.

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    5. Diana,
      I do not see Isaias going to the Mass and i haven't seen Him in the Fiestas of our parishes.
      I think he is not Catholic, maybe he was baptized etc. and it seems like he listened to the catechesis. I think, he belongs to the Episcopal Church. So it is impossible to talk with him about the Church because Episcopal understanding of who is the Holy Father (Pope) and therefore understanding of the Church is different.

      "Ubi Petrus ibi ecclesia, et ibi ecclesia vita eterna"

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    6. Jungle people try to make fun of what I wrote. Too bad for them! They should at least read the Catechism of the Catholic Church! Read the CCC please:

      1. Abraham is the spiritual father of all faithful. He is the father in spiritual sense only because he cannot be biological father. His real descendants are the Jews, including Jesus. But we are the spiritual.

      146 Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen":7 "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."8 Because he was "strong in his faith", Abraham became the "father of all who believe".9

      2. Jesus is part of the people of covenant, the descendants of father Abraham. He is incorporated by circumcision. How beautiful!

      527 Jesus' circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth,209 is the sign of his incorporation into Abraham's descendants, into the people of the covenant. It is the sign of his submission o the Law210 and his deputation to Israel's worship, in which he will participate throughout his life. This sign prefigures that "circumcision of Christ" which is Baptism.211

      3. Abraham's faith was purified. Purified by mental anguish and suffering, like burning as gold. All who do not have Abraham's faith are not purified, are not adult but childish. I tell you brother if you are not like Abraham, then you have to convert. Otherwise you remain an idolator just like your ancestors were.

      2572 As a final stage in the purification of his faith, Abraham, "who had received the promises,"13 is asked to sacrifice the son God had given him. Abraham's faith does not weaken ("God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering."), for he "considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead."14 And so the father of believers is conformed to the likeness of the Father who will not spare his own Son but will deliver him up for us all.15 Prayer restores man to God's likeness and enables him to share in the power of God's love that saves the multitude.16

      It is easier to mock the teaching of the Church than listening. But don't you think you lose your salvation when you mock the authority of the Teaching Office? The Catechism of Kiko follows the footsteps of Jesus! Jesus was a great teacher according to the Bible, with great authority, so why don't you listen to Him? Because He was a son of Abraham? Why don't you listen to Kiko? Because he is a prophet of our time? Pray that your rejection of the truth would not turn your soul bitter and sour. Come to your senses, listen to the truth of the Church and of Kiko.

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    7. Dear Ernie,

      The jungle takes everything out of context. Have you noticed that they have nothing to say about the priest's homily in Michigan? Tim Rohr even stated: " By our Baptism, we are all called to be priests, prophets, and kings. However, we do not go around titling ourselves or each other as such."

      Apparently, he does not even know what the Apostle Paul had to say about that in the Holy Bible:

      1 Corinthians 12:28-29 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?.

      Through our baptism, we are all called to be priests, prophets, and kings, but obviously Tim Rohr does not know what that means.

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    8. So you agree with Ernie, do you Diana? Things like this:

      "Prophets are speaking for the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We still need that every day. Our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Kiko talks about Abraham because Abraham is our ancestral father in faith. If your faith is not like Abraham's faith then you are an idolator."?

      Where is Jesus Christ in this picture? What changed with the Incarnation? Why bother with Jesus at all if everything is so clearly Jewish and Old testamenty?

      And what about this?

      "Then it is not mature but childish" or "All who do not have Abraham's faith are not purified, are not adult but childish"

      Are we to thank God that we have Ernie to tell us we are being childish?
      Jesus Christ, (my God), says this " Then he said, 'In truth I tell you, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.
      4. And so, the one who makes himself as little as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven."

      You can keep your perverted, distorted, Jewish "adult faith", connived by your so-called prophet, and I shall strive to keep the simple child-like faith of Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother of God.

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    9. Dear Anonymous at 4:50 pm,

      You ask where is Jesus Christ in this picture. Jesus Christ is in every baptized Catholic. His work is carried on in each of us. In the Old Testament, God has always used people to carry out His plan of salvation. In the New Testament, God used people to carry out His plan of salvation. What makes you think that He no longer uses people TODAY to carry out His plan of salvation? Do you think that the work of Christ ended with the deaths of the Apostles??

      When the Church declares through its Catechism that in our baptism, we are priests, prophets, and kings through Christ, do you interpret that to mean that we are SYMBOLICALLY priests, prophets, and kings??? That we are not REALLY priests, prophets, and kings.....but merely symbols?

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    10. Oh Diana, who are you replying to? Its as though you have completely ignored my previous post and just had a little rant.

      I asked - where is Jesus Christ in Ernie's description as posted above? You can't answer that, so I will for you. The answer is "nowhere", because in Ernie's description (above) there is no need for Jesus. In Ernie's schema we'd all be better off becoming Jewish!

      Did I say that I think God no longer uses people in his work of salvation? No!, That is ridiculous. Did I ever say or suggest that the work of Christ ended with the deaths of the Apostles?! No! Again, nonsense.

      Did I say anything about believing that the "priests, prophets and kings" is metaphorical? No I did not.

      What I did say is that Ernie is presenting a Christless Christianity. He is extolling the Jewish faith as though Christ had never come! And he judges and measures by something he terms "adult faith", which I can only understand as "being more Jewish"!! This is astounding stuff and you are merely being ignorant and side-stepping it. More worryingly, in fact, you appear to be endorsing it!!

      Read my comment again, and if you are inclined, maybe you can answer it properly.

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    11. Dear Anonymous at 6:00 pm,

      Where in Ernie's post did he say that we do not need Christ. According to Ernie, he stated:

      " The Catechism of Kiko follows the footsteps of Jesus! Jesus was a great teacher according to the Bible, with great authority, so why don't you listen to Him?"

      Essentially, what Ernie is saying is that we should follow Jesus despite that Jesus was Jewish who followed Jewish customs. Why? Because Jewish Jesus said that "He is the Way, the Truth and the Life."

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    12. WOW! There's a "Catechism of Kiko"??

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    13. Dear Anonymous at 3:51 pm,

      There is a Catechetical Directory written by Kiko and approved by the Vatican.

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  2. Diana,

    Check out this comment, which was made on the October 7 press briefing about the Extraordinary Synod on the family. These comments haven't appeared in writing on any news portal (at least I couldn't find it anywhere), but according to the spoken statements of the briefing, several bishops participating in the synod did mention the Neocatechumenal Way as an answer to the problems that families and the Church face today:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU7E-LYc1wivk33iyt5bR5zQ&feature=player_detailpage&v=y4HPtseZDEw#t=1564
    N.B.: I set the link to start the video where speaker is the person commenting on the bishop's presentations which were done in English, but the Italian speaker, Fr Federico Lombardi (they were briefing on different groups of bishops based on the language in which the bishops made their presentations) also made similar comment.

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    1. Dear Anonymous at 10:44 pm,

      Thank you for providing this information. :)

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