By Deacon Richard Hay
“Nurturing and using our Prophetic Voice”
In the final few years during my military career as a Command Master Chief in the Navy, I started bringing God and faith into my counseling sessions with Sailors.
These Sailors were not in my office because things were going well at home, or with their finances, or family life – they were there because the command had been notified through some means that there were issues.
Bringing faith into the conversation was an opportunity to see if they were looking outside of themselves to help them navigate these challenges or if they were trying to solve it all on their own.
I will admit, it was nerve racking to do this because there was a bit of a taboo about mentioning religion at work – especially in the Navy if you weren’t a chaplain.
However, it seemed to help in a few cases and hopefully made a difference in the long run in these Sailors’ lives as they continued in the Navy or entered civilian life.
While I thought I was unique in my faith in those days around the Navy, after retirement, I started to see many of my former shipmates mentioning on social media about their own faith and turning to God in different circumstances. How great it would have been to see those professions of faith while we were on active duty. I would have loved to know this about them.
Alas, the obvious challenge is that most, just like me, hesitate to bring up God and faith in work and other environments because of not being sure about how someone might react. I believe that is the case these days as well for us.
It is easy to talk about our beliefs and faith around people of a like mind because it is a safe environment – we get a pretty good sense of how someone will react and respond because we know they hold the same or similar beliefs.
However, speaking the truth outside of our church community – to someone with different beliefs and values to our own – that gets scary – I know it does for me.
Our readings today are about fulfilling our roles as prophets – which means proclaimers of the will of God.
As Catholics we believe that the sacraments of baptism and confirmation make us prophets like Christ through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. At our baptism we hear the words that we are now “priest, prophet, and king” but do we take on that role of prophet or do we place it in the background and avoid it at all costs?
We tend to think of prophets in terms of those big names in the Old Testament. Names like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Joel. Chosen by God to proclaim his will to the nations – and that is exactly what they did. Yes, some of them were also reluctant prophets – like Jonah.
Our saints are also prophets in the way they share the truth with us. How they lived their lives, spoke truth to others such as when John the Baptist did to King Herod and, in so many cases, gave up their lives for the faith by shedding their blood through martyrdom.
Now, here in the US, we are much less likely to have to die for our faith, although there are many places throughout the world, where Christians continue to be martyred for their beliefs.
Either way, even at the risk of losing friends or alienating family, our opportunity is to speak the truth to all – even those who disagree with us – and to do so in love.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not easy being a prophet. It is not easy to speak truth to others, but it is necessary, and it is not just intended for a select few.
The prophet Joel prophesied that the spirit of prophecy would not just be shared by a few as in the Old Testament days – but by every believer. That my brothers and sisters include each one of us through our baptism.
As I said earlier, these days it is even more challenging to be a prophet but there is an opportunity to really step into this role in our lives because right now our state has something called Amendment 4 on the ballot this November that must be defeated.
This amendment would make abortion even more accessible under the guise of healthcare, doesn’t define what a doctor is for the purposes of approving an abortion for someone, and would remove parental consent for minors seeking an abortion by changing that to just a parental notification.
As prophets we must speak the truth for the defenseless – speak out for the little ones as Jesus talked about in the gospel. We are their voices – and this is our time to share that with all our family, friends, and co-workers – including those outside of our church community.
Yes – there could be persecution and risks for speaking the truth – especially in the very divisive environment we live in these days.
Jesus acknowledges this in the Beatitudes when he says, “Blessed are you when men revile against you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”
He then goes on to say – “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”
How do each of us get to this point where we are willing to speak the truth no matter what the circumstances might be?
First – meditate on the Word of God to cultivate the prophetic charism that we received in baptism and confirmation. The grace we received with those sacraments will help in this, but we must carry those graces forward.
Second – eliminate sin in our lives since it is incompatible with the presence of God’s spirit and separates us from Him. We must earnestly strive to live a holy life every day.
What we heard in the gospel today about cutting off our hand, foot, or plucking out our eye – it was not meant to literally do those things, but it is about removing sin from our lives including those things that lead us to sin.
Let’s be honest – we know what those things are, and they need to be removed from our lives so that we do not end up in Gehenna as Jesus says in the gospel.
Third – pray unceasingly. Personal prayer and public prayer are key to this. In addition, a great opportunity to do this together as a church community is during First Friday Adoration next week or during the 24 hours of adoration we will be doing here in the parish starting on October 6th during the National Eucharistic Rosary Congress.
If we cultivate this prophetic role in our lives by doing these things, we will gain insight into the truth that God wants us to speak for ourselves and to others – and the words we need will be given to us just as Jesus said they would.
So, when you hear me say the words “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” at the end of mass – that is God sending you out into the world to speak the truth not me as the deacon.
As Chris Stefanik said at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis during his keynote – “Go is two-thirds of the word God”.
Know that it is He who is telling us to go out into the world to be His prophets and to fulfill this role in our lives of faith.
