|
fr. Dominic Mendonca, OP
In virtue of our baptism
we share in the prophetic ministry of Jesus. Every
Christian is called and chosen to be a prophet who
proclaims the word of God. The readings of this Sunday
keep before us two great prophets: Jesus and Jeremiah.
Both of them had similar life-experiences. Both
experienced the closeness and support of God when they
were called: At his call Jeremiah experienced the loving
assurance of God. As we heard in the first reading,
Yahweh assures him his support and tells him ‘before you
were formed in your mother’s womb I knew you and I have
called you’. Jesus, at his baptism, had the abba
experience; he heard the voice of the Father, ‘this is
my beloved son’. Jesus becomes fully aware of the
unconditional love of the Father. Both Jeremiah and
Jesus lived a celibate life as a sign of their total
consecration for mission. Both prophesied against the
temple. Both had the experience of being rejected by
their own and abandoned by God. Jeremiah’s experience of
rejection is voiced out in his words ‘you have seduced
me Lord and I allowed myself to be seduced”. Jesus cries
from the cross ‘my God my God why have you forsaken me’?
We are the prophets of
God. Jesus once said ‘no prophet is honored in his own
country’. What Jesus experienced in his home town
Nazareth is the beginning of his rejection which
culminated on the cross. Why was Jesus rejected? He was
rejected because he spoke truth. He took the side of the
poor and oppressed. He opposed the oppressing laws and
systems. As a prophet he proclaimed and revealed the
love of God and God’s preference for the poor and the
repentant sinners. We live in a world where speaking
truth is not regarded normal. Ours is a culture of lies
and corruption. We speak not the truth but what brings
us profit and advantage. Those who speak the truth are
often punished and persecuted. We have the example of
Archbishop Oscar Romeiro who, because of his strong
prophetic words, in which denounced the oppressors, was
murdered while he was offering mass.
What way can we exercise
our prophetic mission today. Like Jeremiah we need to
have faith in God who has chosen us even before we were
born. God loves us and accompanies us in our earthly
mission. Like Jesus and Jeremiah we need to love the
word of God. We need to read it, listen to it carefully
while it is being read in the liturgy, and reflect over
it. Like Jesus and Jeremiah our life has to be centered
on the word of God. When we live the word we have
already proclaimed it. We have several opportunities in
our day to day life to renounce falsehood and injustice.
We need to use them in courage.
Like Jesus and Jeremiah
there are times in our lives we feel let down and
rejected by people, even by people who have been close
to us. Even God seems to be far from us. We feel as if
God has abandoned us and our prayers are unheard. Most
of the saints had to go through this suffering. But this
is the precise moment that God is close to us and tests
us in love; He purifies us as gold is purified in
furnace. In such dry and dark moments all that we need
to do is throw ourselves like a child in the arms of God
and call on him as Jesus and Jeremiah did. |
