When many people hear the word prophet, they think of someone who predicts the  future. You know: ” You will meet a stranger who will give you lots of money.” However, such a person is not a prophet, he or she is a clairvoyant. God tells us to keep away from them for they are not speaking for Him. A prophet is one who speaks for God and predicts what will happen if we do not repent. He will read the signs of the times and in union with God will see what  will happen if the world does not change. All of us are called to be prophets.

If we look at the second reading, we can see one of the most important things needed to be a prophet—a renewal of our minds. We have a calling to live in the world but not to be of it and that means to see things from God’s perspective and not the world’s. We then have a calling to live our lives in a way that others repent and turn to God themselves. This is our call to be prophets. Unfortunately, many in our country have lost this and have allowed their minds to be darkened by the world. The world’s ideas will always darken our minds from Christ if we embrace them.

One of the first teachings that the world cause people to reject is sin. Our call is to teach about sin for sin is destructive.

Many will look at the destruction of sin as for example the hangover after getting drunk the night before. Getting drunk is a sin and the destruction it causes is a hangover and it grows from there into addiction, etc.

That is true, but let us look at something even more obvious and blatant.

We have seen some great destruction in Ferguson Missouri and many people claiming racism in the death of a black teenager. Well let us look more closely:

If all involved in the original incident that led to the riots understood and took to heart the message on sin, none of it would have happened. Of course, the media never brought that word up, from what I heard.

An eighteen year old ended up dead in a struggle with a police officer and we do not know all the facts, but allegedly he was shoplifting from a store prior to the incident. Shoplifting is stealing and is a sin. The punishment for stealing is not death, we are not Babylonians, but you can see the great destruction that happened when everything begins with sin. The tiniest sin, eventually, can lead to the greatest destruction. So leading people away from sin and toward Christ is the call of the prophet. You cannot do one without the other or you are wasting your breath. You and I have a calling to be prophets.

You may say quickly that clearly he should not have been stealing, if in fact he was. That is true, but did he know that stealing is wrong, did he know about sin and redemption, did he take it to heart? Why or why not? You see the more prophets there are in the world the less this type of destruction happens. People die because they don’t live or hear the word of God. God may turn to them at the day of judgement, but he will turn to you and ask why did they not hear the word that would have saved their life.

This is not an inner city black teen that died. This is a child of God. God calls us as Catholics to preach the message to all that all may be saved. If we are not living the message, people die. Sin caused all of this and multiplied with people speaking not of peace, but of a worldly justice that was promoted by some street thugs.

When we see the issues that have popped up in our world today, many think of the Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse. However, I am seeing a greater connect to the book of Ezekiel.

Ezekiel preached to the people of Judah whose capital was Jerusalem. They had gone astray including the most powerful, the professional religious to many who were neither. Meanwhile, on the warpath was the nation of Babylon which today is Iraq. Ezekiel warned the people that Babylon would strike and destroy if the people did not change their ways. However, the people did not believe him. He called people to repentance, and they did not listen. Meanwhile, God showed the prophet all the secrets of the people that they could not keep from God. He showed Ezekiel how He knew all that was happening and showed the prophet what was happening behind the scenes including the priests practicing idolatry. Ezekiel warned and warned. The people did not listen. Eventually, the Babylonians came in, just as God said and the destruction was not only massive, it was not that much different than what we have seen on the news. Literally as gruesome. If I were to make a comparison of which Book seems to be the similar to our times, it would not be the Book of Revelations, it would be Ezekiel.

Our world  and  our nation have turned from God in much the same way as the people of Judah. They are in great sin. You and I have a call to bring them back. You and I have a call to teach people to come to Christ, to know sin and to turn to Christ for the healing from Sin. If we do not do this, we are not prophets. We are thinking as the world thinks and we the world does not need more of its own thinking.

We are in the world not of it and if we take that to heart, we can be the prophets we were called to be at baptism. If we don’t, we offer the world nothing but the path to its own destruction.

God bless you,

Fr. Robert J Carr