Where are the prophets?

King, prophet, priest. Much is discussed about administration (king), cult and religion (priest) within religious life and the Church. But the heart of faith is not the Institution. Not that it is not important. Yet at times and in some places one gets the impression that some are trying to reorganize the chairs in the Titanic. What seems to be missing today within the Church is the prophetic voice.

What is a prophet? What is his/her “vocation”? Members of Religious Institutes should think deeply on this. After all, religious life, though part of the structure of the Church, comes about under the impulse of the Spirit and constitutes religious life as a charismatic dimension of the Church in the world.

In all religions and in secular society as well, the prophet must have a contemplative outlook on life that makes it possible to see through, over, under and in between the details to discover the impulse of Life that promises a true future where things are “made right”. For us Christians, the prophet searches to discern the will of God, the design of the Kingdom. And proclaims it without fear, cutting through rhetoric and the ambiguity of discourse. He takes risks and literally empties his/her self out for the sake of that which ought to be but is not quite here yet. Love and justice have been key words of prophets.

But there are also false prophets. Who are the real prophets today? Here is where discernment comes in, discernment carried out in common unity (community).

Look to the future!

A French philosopher writes: “Maybe the future does not need us. However, we need the future because it gives meaning to what we do”. I think of the future in terms of future generations, in terms of people, concrete faces that do not yet exist. We will be their past in the stream of an ever changing present. We must allow them to become present to us and make us aware that they are not only our “children” (that we generate a future) but also our parents (the future forms us). This makes us conscious of the serious moral responsibility each of us has – which, however, must not be motivated by guilt but by faith, hope and mercy.

Saint Alphonsus lived “eternity now” – he lived conscious that the past and the future are contained in the “now”, in the “here and now” that heals the past and projects a future of love. The key is the relationship with God who makes possible, in his unconditional love, a future that is ever new. His language and mentality were of the 1700’s Naples. The dynamic of his pastoral efforts and spirituality, however, have made possible a Redemptorist Family with a heart that beats with the same hope of an ever new future in love.