Unpleasant Truths

For theologian Megan McKenna, the biblical prophets carried a painful burden on behalf of truth and justice:

The prophets ached over injustice and were torn to shreds by it. They had no life but God’s honor—which was the only hope of the poor. They were reminders in the flesh of that honor—painful, angry truth-tellers who knew what was wrong. They made people nervous, sick to their stomachs, vicious, and self-righteous. Or worse, after all the reactions, the prophets were ignored—the people didn’t change, didn’t convert. And then the prophets’ words came to pass: the warnings, the threats, and the punishments that were the natural consequences of people’s behavior came about.…

The prophets’ vocation is to cry out—to God, to the air, to any open heart; they cry out on behalf of God and on behalf of the poor because no one is listening except God. They cry out for those no one heeds, except maybe in passing in lip service.…

The prophets often see us as nearsighted, meaning we can only see what is immediately under our noses, connected to our own lives. We have lost sight of the vision of hope, of the future that God intends, while we have been concentrating with total self-absorption on our own immediate desires. We are like drivers lost in a fog of our own obsessions, unable to see the road clearly. And so we need the prophets, the far-seeing ones, the dreamers in broad daylight, the long-distance high beams that show us glimpses of where we are going and what the outcome of our choices and lifestyles will be. One way to define a prophet is a person who sees so clearly what is happening in the present moment that he or she can tell us what is going to happen if we don’t change immediately and radically.

McKenna tells of the transformational wisdom behind the prophet’s dramatic messages and methods: 

The prophet uses every resource at his or her disposal. Weeping, raging, crying out, criticism, blessings and curses, storytelling, singing, dramas acted out, possessions and even cities destroyed, food eaten or left to rot, ingenious set-ups and insults—all serve only one purpose: the conversion of heart and the doing of restitution to rebalance and heal the world again. However prophets may prophesy, their integrity is shown by the way in which they give up their very lives as testimony and witness as they side with the forgotten and the lost ones and loudly proclaim that God, who is aware of their pain and feels their suffering as [God’s] own, will not allow that pain and suffering to continue. God is not indifferent to or far from anyone’s life, but rather draws near to those who know pain because of the sin and indifference of others. The prophet loudly insists that God is not impartial and that God will not allow anyone who professes belief in the Holy to harm another.

Anger Does Its Work

Prophets are often known for their anger against injustice. CAC teacher Brian McLaren makes a connection between anger and love:  

I think about things I love … birds, trees, wetlands, forested mountains, coral reefs, my grandchildren … and I see the bulldozers and smokestacks and tanks on the horizon.  

And so, because I love, I am angry. Really angry.  

And if you’re not angry, I think you should check your pulse, because if your heart beats in love for something, someone, anything … you’ll be angry when it’s harmed or threatened.  

To paraphrase René Descartes (1596–1650): I love; therefore, I’m angry. […]

Anger makes most sense to me through an analogy of pain. What pain is to my body, anger is to my soul, psyche, or inner self. When I put my hand on a hot stove, physical pain reflexes make me react quickly, to address with all due urgency whatever is damaging my fragile tissues. Physical pain must be strong enough to prompt me to action, immediate action, or I will be harmed, even killed.  

Similarly, when I or someone I love is in the company of insult, injustice, injury, degradation, or threat, anger awakens. It tells me to change my posture or position; it demands I address the threat.

McClaren shares scriptural passages that urge us not to react in anger, and describes how contemplative practice can direct our anger into loving action:  

Don’t be overcome with evil. Overcome evil with good. (See Romans 12:21).  

When someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek. (See Luke 6:29).  

Do not return evil for evil to anyone. (See Romans 12:17).  

Bless those who persecute you. Bless, and do not curse. (See Romans 12:14).  

In each case, we’re given alternatives to our natural reactions, alternatives that break us out of fight/flight/freeze, mirroring, and judging. In the split second when we take that long, deep breath, we might breathe out a prayer: “Guide me, Spirit of God!” We might pause to hear if the Spirit inspires us with some non-reactive, non-reflexive response. […]

Anger does its work. It prompts us to action, for better or worse. With time and practice, we can let the reflexive reactions of fight/flight/freeze, mirroring, and judging pass by like unwanted items on a conveyor belt. Also, with practice, we can make space for creative actions to be prompted by our anger … actions that are in tune with the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (see Galatians 5:22) … actions that overcome evil with good and bring healing instead of hate.  

So, yes, you bet I’m angry. It’s a source of my creativity. It’s a vaccination against apathy and complacency. It’s a gift that can be abused—or wisely used. Yes, it’s a temptation, but it’s also a resource and an opportunity, as unavoidable and necessary as pain. It’s part of the gift of being human and being alive.

Disrupting the Status Quo

Richard Rohr describes how speaking truth to power is an essential part of the prophet’s mission: 

One of the gifts of the prophets is that they evoke a crisis where one did not appear to exist before their truth-telling. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. was blamed for creating violence—but those who had eyes to see and were ready to hear recognized, “My God, the violence was already there!” Structural violence was inherent in the system, but it was denied and disguised. No one was willing to talk about it. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and others said, “We’re going to talk about it.”

Prophets always talk about the untalkable and open a huge new area of “talkability.” For those who are willing to go there, it helps us see what we didn’t know how to see until they helped us to see it. That’s how we begin to recognize a prophet—there is this widening of seeing, this deepening of a truth that was always there.

Prophets generate a crisis, so it’s almost understandable why they’re usually called troublemakers and so often killed. They generate the crisis because while everybody else is saying the emperor is beautifully clothed, they are willing to say, “No, he’s naked.” We’re not supposed to say that the emperor has no clothes!

It’s the nature of culture to have its agreed-upon lies. Culture holds itself together by projecting its shadow side elsewhere. That’s called the “scapegoat mechanism.” René Girard, Gil Bailie, and others have pointed out that the scapegoat mechanism is the subtext of the entire biblical revelation. It’s the tendency to export our evil elsewhere and to hate it there, and therefore to remain in splendid delusion. If there isn’t a willingness to be critical of our country, our institution, and ourselves, we certainly can’t be prophets. [1]

When the prophet is missing from the story, the shadow side of things is always out of control, as in much of the world today, where we do not honor wisdom or truth.

It seems the prophet’s job is first to deconstruct current illusions, which is the status quo, and then reconstruct on a new and honest foundation. That is why the prophet is never popular with the comfortable or with those in power. Only a holy few have any patience with the deconstruction of egos and institutions.

The prophets are “radical” teachers in the truest sense of the word. The Latin radix means root, and the prophets go to the root causes and root vices and “root” them out! Their educational method is to expose and accuse with no holds barred. Ministers and religion in general tend to concentrate on effects and symptoms, usually a mopping up exercise after the fact. As someone once put it, we throw life preservers to people drowning in the swollen stream, which is all well and good—but prophets work far upstream to find out why the stream is swollen in the first place. [2]

Big Picture Thinkers

In a 2006 CAC conference, Richard Rohr identified the prophet as one who places issues in the context of the “big picture”:

What is a prophet? Let me try this as a definition: one who names the situation truthfully and in its largest context. When we can name the situation truthfully and in its largest context, it cannot get pulled into interest groups and political expediency. I was preaching in Atlanta, and I went for the first time to the Martin Luther King Jr. exhibit. It’s so obvious that he was a biblical prophet. I stood there and heard the addresses right in his very church, Ebenezer Baptist Church, where they play his preaching constantly. I realized how he was always putting racism and segregation in the big context of the kingdom of God. And then he kept going and came out against the Vietnam War. He is said to have lost at least one-third of his own followers because he placed the issue in too big a frame.

We don’t want the big frame. No one wants the big picture. I’m convinced that Jesus’ metaphor and image for what we would simply call the big picture is the reign of God, or the kingdom of God. That’s Jesus’ way of describing a phrase we used to say in Latin [sub specie aeternitatis] which means, “In light of eternity.” To consider things in light of eternity is a great clarifier. Maybe it comes to us on our death bed, when we think to ourselves, “Is this going to mean anything? Does this really matter? Is this little thing we’re upset about now and taking offense at going to mean anything in light of eternity?” The prophet or prophetess speaks truthfully and in the largest context. [1]

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, he spoke from the “big frame” to call for a revolution of values based on love: 

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all [humankind].… When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.… If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and [God’s] love is perfected in us” [1 John 4:7–8, 12]. Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. [2]

For Father Richard, God shows us our soul’s calling through spiritual practice and letting go of the ego’s drive:

Our age has come to expect satisfaction. We have grown up in an absolutely unique period when having and possessing and accomplishing have been real options. They have given us an illusion of fulfillment—and fulfillment now—as long as we are clever enough, quick enough, and pray or work hard enough for our goals or rewards. [1]

I am convinced that the Book of Jonah can best be read as God moving someone from a mere sense of a religious job or career to an actual sense of personal call, vocation, or destiny. It takes being “swallowed by a beast” and taken into a dark place of nesting and nourishing that allows us to move to a deeper place called personal vocation. It involves a movement from being ego-driven to being soul-drawn. The energy is very different. It comes quietly and generously from within. Once we have accepted our call, we do not look for payment, reward, or advancement because we have found our soul gift.

I have met many people who have found their soul gift, and they are always a joy to work with. It’s apparent they are not counting the cost, but just want to serve and help. Benedictines have a group they call oblates, which means “those who are offered.” To come with our lives as an offering is quite different from the seeking of a career, security, status, or title. Even the [retired head of the] Vatican’s office for bishops dared to admit publicly [his] worries about rampant careerism among bishops worldwide as they sought promotion to higher and more prestigious dioceses. [2] It sounds like we still have James and John wanting to sit at the right and left sides of the throne of Jesus (Mark 10:37). Maybe young people need to start there, but we can see why Jonah has to be shoved out of the boat. Otherwise, he never would have gotten to the “right” Nineveh.

We must listen, wait, and pray for our charism and call. Most of us are really only good at one or two things. Meditation should lead to a clarity about who we are and, maybe even more, who we are not. This second revelation is just as important as the first. I have found it difficult over the years to sit down and tell people what is not their gift. It is usually very humiliating for individuals to face their own illusions and inabilities. We are not usually a truth-speaking people. We don’t speak the truth to one another, nor does our culture encourage the journey toward the True Self. The false self often sets itself up for unnecessary failures and humiliations. [3]

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Sarah Young

Try to view each day as an adventure. Do not try to program your day(s) according to your will, instead surrender your day(s) to Me.

Thank Me and trust that I am with you each moment. Surrender, connect and live your days in eager expectation, expecting surprises and difficulties, while you are being held safely in My arms.

Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Isaiah 41:10 “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

1 Peter 2:21 For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. 

Richard reflects on what it means to respond to God’s call of love and justice for the common good:

What, then, does it mean to follow Jesus?

History is continually graced with people who somehow learned to act beyond and outside their self-interest and for the good of the world, people who clearly operated by a power larger than their own. Consider Gandhi, Oskar Schindler, Martin Luther King Jr. Add to them Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Óscar Romero, César Chávez, and many unsung leaders. Their inspiring witness offers us strong evidence that the mind of Christ still inhabits the world. Most of us are fortunate to have crossed paths with many lesser-known persons who exhibit the same presence. I can’t say how one becomes such a person. All I can presume is that they were all called. They all had their Christ moments, in which they stopped denying their own shadows, stopped projecting those shadows elsewhere, and agreed to own their deepest identity in solidarity with the world. 

But it is not an enviable position, this Christian thing. 

Following Jesus is a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world. 

To allow what God for some reason allows—and uses. 

And to suffer ever so slightly what God suffers eternally. 

Often, this has little to do with believing the right things about God—beyond the fact that God is love itself. 

Those who respond to the call and agree to carry and love what God loves—which is both the good and the bad—and to pay the price for its reconciliation within themselves, these are the followers of Jesus Christ. They are the leaven, the salt, the remnant, the mustard seed that God uses to transform the world. The cross, then, is a very dramatic image of what it takes to be usable for God. It does not mean they are going to heaven and others are not; rather, it means they have entered into heaven much earlier and thus can see things in a transcendent, whole, and healing way now. 

Saints are those who wake up while in this world, instead of waiting for the next one. Francis of Assisi, William Wilberforce, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Harriet Tubman didn’t feel superior to anyone else; they just knew they had been let in on a big divine secret, and they wanted to do their part in revealing it. 

God is calling every one and every thing, not just a few chosen ones, to God’s self (Genesis 8:15–17; Ephesians 1:9–10; Colossians 1:15–20). To get every one and every thing there, God first needs models and images who are willing to be “conformed to the body of his death” and transformed into the body of his resurrection (Philippians 3:10). These are the “new creation” (Galatians 6:15), and their transformed state is still seeping into history and ever so slowly transforming it into “life and life more abundantly” (John 10:10).

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Sarah Young

Let Me prepare you for your day. not try to anticipate your day or the issues of your day. You can best prepare by spending time with Me. My abiding presence is the best road map available to you. Surrender your day, moments and plans to Me. It is the best roadmap available.

Exodus 33:14 “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 

John 15:4-7 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine

Initial Conversion

Father Richard Rohr describes the confidence that characterizes the voice of the prophets: 

What characterizes the prophets, and it’s still a bit of a shock to the rest of us, is an immense self-confidence that they speak for God. Where does this come from? How can they be so sure? “Thus says the Lord,” they begin with, and “Hear the word of the Lord.” They describe their call, and if we look at the conversion of Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or even Moses who was called the first of the prophets, we can see that it’s their initial transformative experience that names the rest of their insight. We see the same in Paul, where Paul’s conversion experience (Acts 9:1–19) takes place after hearing Jesus say, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (9:4). At first Paul defends himself, as if to say: “I wasn’t persecuting you Jesus, but these people.” Ultimately, Paul comes up with this marvelous doctrine of the mystical body of Christ: there’s an inherent communion or union between Jesus and his people. What you do to one, you do to the other. Until we understand that, we don’t understand Paul at the ground level. Everything proceeds from that.

Richard affirms that a prophetic call comes to each of us in our own unique way: 

It’s the prophets’ initial theophany, their initial parting of the veil that seems to become the nature of how they henceforth see reality. I want you to see that because I’d like you to look at your own spiritual autobiography and see how you were formed, how and where you were led when God showed God’s face to you. It’s at that level that you know—and you know that you know. Your prophetic charism comes from your own conversion, a transformation into the mystery of God.

Paul knew that the only way this realignment would take place was through an ego-stripping experience that tears away our false and fabricated self and leads us to a new self (Ephesians 2:15; Galatians 6:15), where all contradictions can be absorbed and overcome. It had happened in him and now he saw his life as “handing on this reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18), which was always through the coincidence of opposites called the cross.

The cross, even geometrically, is a collision of two opposing lines. Paul knew by his unwarranted election that God had not eliminated or expelled his former self, but instead had “incorporated” it into the Christ Self. He knew that he was still a mass of contradictions and inconsistencies, which is exactly what is written all over the pages of his letters. Yet his absolute confidence was not in his personal wholeness, but in Jesus, the one who had grafted him onto the Wholeness of God. This is the total basis of Paul’s joy, his love, his daring self-confidence, and his impassioned desire to have everyone else experience the same transformation and ecstasy.

Guided toward Excellence

Presbyterian author and theologian Eugene Peterson reflects upon God’s challenging questions to the prophet Jeremiah at a pivotal point in his ministry:

Every one of us needs to be stretched to live at our best, awakened out of dull moral habits, shaken out of petty and trivial busy-work. Jeremiah does that for me. And not only for me. Millions upon millions of Christians and Jews have been goaded and guided toward excellence as they have attended to God’s word spoken to and by Jeremiah.…

There is a memorable passage concerning Jeremiah’s life when, worn down by the opposition and absorbed in self-pity, he was about to capitulate to … a premature death. He was ready to abandon his unique calling in God and settle for being a Jerusalem statistic. At that critical moment he heard the reprimand: “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you fall down, how will you do in the jungle of the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5).… Biochemist Erwin Chargaff [1905–2022] updates the questions: “What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you seeking greater wisdom, deeper piety?” [1]

Peterson imagines the conversation between God and prophet: 

Life is difficult, Jeremiah. Are you going to quit at the first wave of opposition? .… Are you going to live cautiously or courageously? I called you to live at your best, to pursue righteousness, to sustain a drive toward excellence. It is easier, I know, to be neurotic. It is easier to be parasitic. It is easier to relax in the embracing arms of The Average. Easier, but not better. Easier, but not more significant. Easier, but not more fulfilling. I called you to a life of purpose far beyond what you think yourself capable of living and promised you adequate strength to fulfill your destiny. Now at the first sign of difficulty you are ready to quit. If you are fatigued by this run-of-the-mill crowd of apathetic mediocrities, what will you do when the real race starts, the race with the swift and determined horses of excellence? What is it you really want, Jeremiah, do you want to shuffle along with this crowd, or run with the horses?.…

It is unlikely, I think, that Jeremiah was spontaneous or quick in his reply to God’s question. The ecstatic ideals for a new life had been splattered with the world’s cynicism. The euphoric impetus of youthful enthusiasm no longer carried him. He weighed the options. He counted the cost. He tossed and turned in hesitation. The response when it came was not verbal but biographical. His life became his answer, “I’ll run with the horses.” 

In this sermon, noted pastor, theologian, and mystic Howard Thurman (1900–1981) describes the faith of the Hebrew prophets:

The prophets of Israel were intimately tied up with the movements of the periods in which they lived. They were involved in the social process, which is very important to remember. They interpreted Israel and its relationship to God … as a primary and personal covenantal relationship. And it is very important to hold that in mind that, for reasons that we cannot quite understand even to this day, in some strange and fascinating and yet miraculous manner this group of people regarded themselves as being [in] some initially unique relationship with the Creator of their own lives and their little world and their little state….

Now fundamental to this concept … is a philosophy which to read it says that God is inside the historic process: that [God] is not outside of it manipulating it or unmindful of it.

Prophets view God as actively involved in our lives, and Thurman challenges us to respond to this dynamic intimacy:

How do you interpret the events of your life? How do you measure them? Do you live your life on the basis that all that there is to you and what you do is wrapped up in the movement, the isolated, circumscribed movement, pulse beat of your little life? Now, if you do, then you know, you see, that the very nature of life is of such that it is fixed … it is finished, it is complete, and you know you can’t do anything about anything anyway so you don’t try….

Now there is another point of view, and this is the point of view of the prophet. And that is that human life, as well as the lives of nations, takes place within a context that is dynamic. That always when I am in the presence of any event, I am caught in an encounter with a series of potentials that spread out in the widest possible directions and with the most amazing variety of variation. So that if I am alert in the presence of the event, I seek to deal with the event in terms not merely of what it says, what it looks like, but in terms of what seems to me to be the dynamics of the event, the potentials of the event.

Do you deal with events of your life in that way? Do you believe that life is really dynamic? That it isn’t quite finished yet? That not only are you involved always in a circling series of potentials, but that you are potential. You, potential. And no time band, no time interval is able quite to contain you and the dynamics of your life and your situation. Do you believe that?

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Sarah Young

You can achieve the victorious life by living dependent on Me. Successful people tend to depend on themselves or their resources. But those with constant failures and problems tend to rely on Me.

Your continual failures create dependence. Surrender, connect and live out of that.

Psalm 34:17-18 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. 

2 Corinthians 5:7 NKJV For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Prophets Belong in Community

CAC teacher Dr. Barbara Holmes describes our natural resistance to prophets in our midst: 

Prophets are difficult to have around. No one wants to claim the title or do the work because of it. In this postmodern age, everybody is uncomfortable with prophets. They yell when you don’t want them to. They ask for trouble when you could avoid it. They don’t have a politically correct bone in their bodies….

Prophets are leaders, but not leaders of their own choosing. Inevitably, they have some sort of divine encounter. A burning bush, a ram in the bush, a call in the night, visions, dreams. They’re quirky and more than a little weird. Take Jeremiah as an example, crying all the time. And Isaiah fasting and lying in the dirt, and John the Baptist eating locusts, and Huldah prophesying doom. Finally, one of the most important characteristics of prophets is that they are dangerous to the system….

In bringing messages from God—and God doesn’t mince words—God speaks directly through them. They have a relationship and intimacy with the Divine. They communicate with God through prayer, direct speech; God walks and talks with them. Maybe not literally but in other ways. They have gifts, and they offer signs and wonders associated with the verification of the presence of God. They have communal connections. They act on behalf of community, not for their own gain, and are dependent on the community for help when they need it.

Holmes emphasizes the communal nature of the prophetic role:

This is a neglected but important aspect of the prophetic call. In Numbers 11:24–29, Moses is exhausted with the people. Basically, God says “Okay, okay, assemble the elders. Look to the community. You were never supposed to do this alone. I told you to do it; I didn’t tell you to do it alone.” How many of us are carrying burdens that are not ours, and we’re feeling pretty righteous about it? The work of living and dying and raising children, leading congregations, was never meant to be solitary work. So after the elders assemble, Joshua tells Moses that the elders are prophesying, and he says, “Moses, make this stop!” And Moses’ reply in Numbers 11:29 is, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that God would put God’s Spirit on them!”

Let’s just sit with that for a minute. Have you ever felt as if God’s Spirit was on you? Although many of the prophets in the Bible are presented as single carriers of God’s word, often there was a community of other prophets that they came from or were associated with. And so, who is your community? … If you’re called to the prophetic task, and I think in some aspects all of us are—where is your prophetic community that will feed you and support you and guide you and help you?

THE DIVINE HOURS

A form of prayer at specified times to be used by individuals or groups. The Divine Hours includes morning, midday, vespers (evening) and compline (before retiring) offices, having roots in the biblical tradition. By default the Divine Hours below is displayed based on Eastern Standard Time, U.S. You can use these links to view in another U.S. timezone:  CST  |  MST  |  PST

Other time zones will be added as requested.

You may find it helpful to read the introduction by the author, Phyllis Tickle.

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The Morning Office

To Be Observed on the Hour or Half Hour Between 6 and 9 a.m.

The Call to Prayer

Love the LORD, all you who worship him;* the LORD protects the faithful, but repays to the full those who act haughtily.

Psalm 31:23

The Request for Presence

Early in the morning I cry out to you,* for in your word is my trust.

Psalm 119:147

The Greeting

â??You are my God, and I will thank you;* you are my God, and I will exalt you.â??

Psalm 118:28

The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Our help is in the Name of the LORD,* the maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 124:8

A Reading

Of John the Baptizer it is written: â??When the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, â??Who are you?â?? He declared, he did not deny but declared, â??I am not the Christ . . . I am, as Isaiah prophesied: A voice of one that cries out in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight.â?? Now those who had been sent were Pharisees, and they put this question to him, â??Why are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, and not Elijah, and not the Prophet?â?? John answered them, â??I baptize with water, but standing among youâ??unknown to youâ??is the one who is coming after me; and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandal.â?? This happened at Bethany, on the far side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.â??

John 1:19â??20, 23â??28

The Refrain

Our help is in the Name of the LORD,* the maker of heaven and earth.

The Morning Psalm

Tremble, O Earth, at the Presence of the LORD

Hallelujah! When Israel came out of Egypt,* the house of Jacob from a people of strange speech, Judah became Godâ??s sanctuary* and Israel his dominion. The sea beheld it and fled;* Jordan turned and went back. The mountains skipped like rams,* and the little hills like young sheep. What ailed you, O sea, that you fled?* O Jordan, that you turned back? You mountains, that you skipped like rams?* you little hills like young sheep? Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,* at the presence of the God of Jacob, Who turned the hard rock into a pool of water* and flint-stone into a flowing spring.

Psalm 114

The Refrain

Our help is in the Name of the LORD,* the maker of heaven and earth.

The Cry of the Church

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your Name. May your kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for yours are the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The Prayer Appointed for the Week

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Concluding Prayer of the Church

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought me in safety to this new day: Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all I do direct me to the fulfilling of your pur- pose; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.â? 

The Divine Hours are reprinted here with permission of Doubleday and Phyllis Tickle. Not for distribution without permission from the author.
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The Divine Hours © Copyright 2003 Phyllis Tickle www.phyllistickle.com

Choosing the Prophetic Path

On this New Year’s Day, we invite you to explore the theme for this year’s Daily Meditations: The Prophetic Path. We begin with Father Richard’s understanding of the theme and what it means to him: 

Our Daily Meditation theme this year is called The Prophetic Path, and I don’t think it’s an accidental phrase. I offer it in contrast to what most of us were trained to think of as Christianity in general—not as a prophetic path, but as a contest, which immediately frames reality in terms of win-lose, winners and losers. The prophetic path says there’s a way of moving toward winning that includes losing. It doesn’t exclude it. Can we see the genius of that? It’s what you’ve often heard me call perfection as the inclusion of imperfection. Sin is part of the journey towards salvation. Once you hear it, I hope you can say, “Of course, that’s obvious!”

Most of us prefer the language of courtroom and judgment and contest, where there are a few winners and lots of losers. This has not served history well. The prophetic path talks about a journey of two steps forward that necessarily continues to include one step backward. That falling, that failing, that suffering—use whatever word—becomes the energy for the next two steps forward. This is wisdom literature as opposed to contest literature. We’re going to use the meditations this year to try to illustrate that the Christian way is a prophetic path. [1]

Father Richard has long described the prophets as those who offer a “third way” beyond competitive, us-and-them thinking: 

There is a third way beyond fight or flight, conservative or liberal, and it probably is a way of “kneeling.” Most people would just call it “wisdom,” which is always distinguished from mere intelligence. It demands a transformation of consciousness and a move beyond the dualistic win/lose mind. 

We come to this “third way” of the prophetic path only over time. In the words of W. H. Auden, “For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it / Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert.” [2] The gospel accepts this essentially tragic nature of human existence; it is willing to bear the contradictions that are imprinted on all of reality. It will always be a road less traveled. Let’s call it “unstable stability”! But for some reason, it is only the real stability, because it is a truthful map of reality, and it is always the truth that sets us free. It is contact with Reality that finally heals us. And contemplation, quite simply, is meeting reality in its most simple, immediate, and contradictory form. It is the resolving of those immense contradictions that characterizes the mystics, the saints, the prophets, and all those who pray. The result is always a “third something.” [3]

A Journey to the Heart of God

For Father Richard, the power of the prophetic path lies in the tradition and example of the Hebrew prophets. In this excerpt from a series recorded in 1980, Richard describes how a prophetic imagination keeps the church and our faith alive: 

In many ways, I think part of the explanation for perhaps the powerlessness of much of modern Christianity has been that it has lost touch with the Hebrew Scriptures. In particular, we have lost touch with the prophets. When we lose the sense of the prophets and their vision, we enter into a very overly spiritualized interpretation of Christianity. The prophets kept the word of God earthy. They kept it whole. They kept it real. They would not let us divide earth from heaven. They put heaven and earth together and they said, “It’s all one.”

The prophets speak out of a deep experience of God. It seems, somehow, that they’ve entered into the heart of God. They’re bold enough and brazen enough to almost dare to say, “I’ve seen God. I know what God thinks. I’m going to tell you what God thinks.” It takes a strange kind of self-confidence, and even inspiration, to be able to speak with the self-assurance of the Jewish prophets. I think what they give us are, among other things, new images. They give us new images by which we can capture and grasp reality. It seems that a failure of the modern church, maybe of the church in every age, has been a failure of imagination. The prophets explode our imaginations if we can learn how to listen to them and learn to understand the images and metaphors with which they speak.

Imagination is largely a matter of being able to re-image life in new ways. It is not to be caught or trapped in old images of hopelessness. When we’re trapped in old images, we keep living out of them, fighting against them, resisting them, and even saying they don’t work. But it seems we are incapable oftentimes of creating or even accepting new images and living out of those new images.

The prophets give us a sense of the possible. They give us a sense of the impossible, too. That’s why, frankly, they are so hard to listen to—because they explode our minds and push back the limits of our imagination. They increase our capacity to feel. They intensify our capacity for suffering. That’s why people don’t want to listen to them, because prophets increase our ability to feel what God is feeling. To feel God’s pain, God’s desire, God’s longing, and even God’s anger, if you’ll allow.

The prophetic path is a journey into the heart of God. 

In this homily, Father Richard illustrates our inherent union with God—and the small self that keeps us separate.

We go through our lives, our years on this earth, thinking of ourselves as separate. That sense of separateness basically causes every stupid, sinful, silly thing we ever do. The little, separate self takes offense when people don’t show us proper respect. The separate self lies and steals and does unkind things to other people. When we’re separate, everything becomes about protecting and defending ourselves. It can consume our lives.

One word for overcoming that false sense of separateness, that illusory self, is heaven, and, quite frankly, that is what death offers us. It is simply returning to the Source from which we came, where all things are One. The whole gospel message is radical union with God, with neighbor, and even with ourselves. I think that’s why so many of us are drawn to church each week—to receive communion and to eventually, hopefully, realize that we are in communion.

Probably no gospel story says this more clearly and forthrightly than the parable of the vine and the branches (John 15:1–10). Jesus says, “I’m the vine, God is the vine grower, and you (we) are the branches.” As long as we remain in that relationship, we are in love and in union. Whenever we do anything unloving, at that moment, we’re out of union. Even if it’s just a negative, angry, or judgmental thought, we’re doing that out of a sense of disunion—always! And Jesus is very clear. He says that state is useless. Once the branch is cut off from the vine, we might as well throw it into the fire because it’s not going to bear any fruit. He’s not making a threat. He’s just talking practically, as if he were the vineyard owner.

Now, that’s a pretty strong statement about us and the choices we make from that unnecessary state of separateness. We have never been separate from God except in our thoughts, but our thoughts don’t make it true! Nor are we separate from anyone else. Whatever separates us from one another—nationality, religion, ethnicity, economics, language—those are all just accidentals that will all pass away. We are One in God, with Christ and with one another. “I am the vine and you are the branches” (John 15:5). If only we could live that way every hour!

We all pull back into ourselves. We pout and complain and resent and fear. That’s what the little self does. The little self, the branch cut off from the vine, can do nothing according to this gospel. So Jesus says, “Remain in me as I remain in you” (John 15:4).  The promise is constant from God’s side. The only question is from our side. Do we choose to live in that union? Every time we do something with respect, with love, with sympathy, with compassion, with caring, with service, we are operating in union.

____________________________

Sarah Young

Trust Me with every fiber of your being. What I can accomplish through you is proportional to how much you depend on Me. Trust Me in all your decisions and circumstances. Surrender, connect with Me in all your circumstances and live through connection.

Psalm 40:4 Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust, And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies

Psalm 56:3-4 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise— in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?

Psalm 62:8 Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

Isaiah 26:3-4 You will keep in perfect peace. those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. 4 Trust in the Lord forever,

A Capacity for Communion

Catholic spirituality author Judy Cannato writes that our freedom, gifts, and interdependence bring us to a holy obligation:

In Jesus’ final discourse he found it necessary to speak to his disciples about unity, “That they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11, 22). To add emphasis Jesus prays these words twice. Indeed, they are the heart of his mission and message. Jesus’ radical unity with the Holy One defined his life, and his prayer indicates that he wants that same radical unity to define those who follow. . . .

Connectedness is fundamental to our reality. No matter which sphere of life we observe, from the physical to the spiritual, we are connected to others. . . . Many of the social and ecological problems that confront us today stem from our delusion that we are separate from, better, or more significant than, other members of creation—from other groups of people we encounter to the air we breathe. Our lack of openness to all may very well mean our demise.

If we are to expand our hearts to include all creation we need to embrace our capacity for communion. . . . Relationship is something that all life requires, even inorganic life. Our vitality depends upon the connections we establish and the communion we share. [1]

Minister and faith leader Jen Bailey writes to encourage the “misfits,” those on society’s edges, to see themselves as essential to a healthy, sustaining, and interdependent future: 

All around us things are shifting, systems are collapsing, and institutions are failing. This should not surprise us. Around the world, elders across cultures and peoples were predicting this time would come. It is a time of great uncovering in which Mother Earth and Father Sky are pushing us into a divine reckoning about what it means to be in right relationship with one another and all sentient beings in the twenty-first century and beyond. It is clear to me that the actions we take now will have deep and irreversible consequences for the generations to come.

The good news is that this time is made for misfits.

When you are at the center of a circle, it is impossible to see what is at the perimeter—if you are even aware that there is a perimeter. As misfits who were pushed to the edges and in-between places, we are able to see what is on the horizon and collectively discern what is needed to meet the challenges ahead. We are called to be the gardeners who will compost and tend to the soil upon which future generations will sow seeds that will one day blossom. . . .

The great news is we do not have to take on these challenges alone. In the words of the great prayer created in honor of Bishop Oscar Romero, “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.” [2] [3]