PRIEST AS PROPHET

Ordained clergy share not only Jesus’ priesthood and kingship but also share his prophetic nature.  I had never given much thought to the latter as it applies to my own life and found it more comfortable to regard prophets as men in long white beards that lived during the time of the Old Testament.  However as my priesthood has matured and in light of what it means to be America, an American, and a Christian has been hijacked by the Radical Religious-Right, the Lord has been working on me to embrace what sharing his prophetic nature means.  He is helping me to find my prophetic voice and speak out against the lack of ethics, the immorality, and the mean spiritedness the Radical Religious-Right is imposing on America and the world.

What is being made manifest to me in sharp relief is what I was taught at St. Mary’s Seminary: that as priests we are set apart by our priesthood.  We are not better than others, we are not above others, but we are different from others.  Priesthood means that we must accept that we are of the world but not of the world.  Being set apart as a priest is liberating because it allows us, no it mandates, that we exercise our prophetic oneness with Christ. 

Speaking prophetically is not always easy and it does have risks.  Modern day prophets in America will not be stoned but they may well end up in jail.  More likely those who prophesy in defense of the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised which by necessity places them in opposition to the political and social agenda of the Radical Religious- Right both conservative Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, will lose friends and become alienated from members of their own family.  It also means there are some within our Church family that will turn their backs on us.  I know, all of these have happened to me.

Dr. Martin Luther King said long life has its place.  To this I would add friends and family also have their place.  However, Dr. King went on to say having long life does not matter now.  He had been to the mountaintop, looked over, and seen the Promised Land.

Many things have their place including friends and family but they are not important now.  We must climb our own mountain, look over, and see the Promised Land.  We must put our house in order and be not only vigilant but prophetic.  We must embrace our separateness as priests and use its liberating power as the Kabbalistic Ein- Sof’s representatives on earth. 

God made a claim on us when we received the charism of priesthood and we accepted that claim when we were ordained.  We are God’s men and women now and that is what matters.  Everything else must be secondary and whatever privation we experience as a consequence of living our priesthood especially that part of it that is prophetic, we must also accept with joy in our hearts.

As priests, we are called to love all humanity as God love us; that is, with a hesed love: utterly and completely, without reservation or end, a love that God told Jeremiah is “written on our hearts.”  Moreover, we are called to act on that love in a special way by reaching out to the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised wherever we meet them.  We are called to prophesy in their name.  As God whispered in the ear of the prophets of Israel, “Who will speak for me?” and their answer was, “Here I am, Lord,” so too we answered that whisper with, “Here I am, Lord.”

This is what social justice is all about.  It is a prophetic cry to confront the religious, political, and social agenda that seeks to enrich the richest Americans by ignoring the basic subsistence needs of the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised.  It is a prophetic cry to give succor to both the people of America and people of the world, who in the famous words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty are,

"… your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Like the Statute of Liberty, we as priests also have a lamp and a golden door. Our lamp is the light of Christ and our golden door is our prophetic cry for justice.

This is what God expects of us. Can we accept less of ourselves?