When we see a passage as we do in the first reading, we sometimes can have this negative concept of God. Who is God to hold responsible a person for the actions of someone else. If Joe Jones dies, John Smith is punished because he does not tell Joe Jones he was doing something that would kill him. However, do we not have the same standard in our society.

Every so often we have a major event and a whole area is evacuated, but there is always that one old stand-by who refuses to leave. He is informed that it is dangerous for him to stay, but he does not listen. What can be done?  If you are the man in charge of evacuation and this man refuses to leave, you have done your part to save him and he fought you on it. You cannot be held responsible for his death. However, if you knew he needed to evacuate and you did not inform him, then in fact you could be punished for his death. So we do hold a similar standard in our society.

I always remember when Mt St. Helen’s was going to explode, all the civil servants worked to evacuate the mountain. However, there was one guy who had lived on the mountain all his life, refused to leave and said he was going to be fine. After the mountain exploded, the man disappeared; not so much of a trace of him was ever found. No one could be held responsible for the man’s death. He refused to be helped.

Living Prophetically by Frbob Carr on Mixcloud

This is the same standard we see in the first reading from Ezekiel. However, it is on a more universal level. Ezekiel is sent out to call the people to repentance. If they refuse, then Ezekiel has done his job nevertheless, but if they are not told to repent, then Ezekiel will be held responsible. So he actively does God’s will. Paul talks about something similar saying he is doomed if he does not preach.

What is behind this? St. Augustine says it well. He points out that God is just. It is not His will that any man will be saved. However, as a just God he cannot condemn one who has done no evil, for He is just. He must condemn one who has done evil, because He is just. So it is this dynamic we enter into when God calls us to be the prophets of the day.

This means that we have a calling to speak in a way that all may hear and turn to the Lord. If we do this, we co-operate with God. If one does not listen, then it is on him/her. If we do not speak then it is on us. So we have a responsibility to live our lives in a way that preaches the truth of Christ. This is where our morality come in. Some may say for example that we should change our morality in  the Church, update it to today’s standards, No! The Church is the prophetic voice for God. We cannot change our morality. For example, someone may say that everyone is  living together. Therefore, we must update our morality to reflect this.  In fact, I was at the Billy Graham museum in Charlotte, North Carolina and there was a scene from one of his tv appearances in the 60’s or 70’s.  Woody Allen interviewed the evangelist for, what appeared to be, a daytime talk show. Billy Graham spoke of Christian morality being we cannot live together before we are married. Woody Allen strongly disagreed and brought up the worldly view saying that he liked to test drive a car before he buys it. That argument is spoken in many circles. So why can’t we embrace it, besides the obvious human destruction it causes. Simple, we have been called to prophetic living. we cannot live our Catholic life and not follow Catholic morality just because everyone else is doing it. We have a calling to prophetic living. Following God’s will, that others may see and learn of God’s will.  We must live our lives prophetically.  That is what Catholic living is.

Smoking Pot maybe become or maybe is already is legal in the Commonwealth. But that does not mean that it is no longer a sin for us. No! Why? We have been called to prophetic living. The most controversial of our teachings have to do with not using artificial birth control and not condoning abortion, or for that matter priests/ most religious not being married. Why must we follow a different teaching than the world? Because we have a calling to live prophetically. When we ignore that call and we know that many do, then we fall into the category where we are called to be prophets but choose not do. We will be held responsible, for people did not hear the voice we have been called to speak.

This is an element of our teaching that we have lost to the idea that we have only a call to be nice to others. That is not Catholicism, I don’t know what it is, but it is not Catholicism. We have a calling to live as prophets to the world and, therefore, our living must be prophetic. By definition our way of living is going to be counter cultural for we have to challenge our culture in ways that lead it to come closer to Christ. That is why our morality is different and we cannot conform it to this age. When we do, then we follow into the category of being called to be a prophet as we all are and remaining silent. When we do that, we do damage to our community. If we want to bring life and healing, we have to embrace our relationship with Christ and life as prophets challenging our community.