DAY 2: Additional Reflection Material

Prophets are not fortune-tellers or some type of divinely sanctioned astrologers. Instead a prophet is a person who “feels fiercely.” 5 And what does the prophet “feel”? What is at the heart of her or his sensibility? “Fellowship with the feelings of God” – but not just any feelings. Rather the prophet experiences a profound “sympathy with the divine pathos”: prophets are taken up into the pity and compassion that most intensely consume God’s heart. The prophet hears God’s voice, feels one with the pain and sorrow of the divine heart, and tries to communicate the depths of that passion to all. 6

Prophets are keenly aware of two things: how awesome is God’s hope for the world and for each human being in the world and how far we are from the realization of that divine dream for all humankind. The pain of this awareness burns in the prophet’s heart and, at times, moves the prophet to speak and act in ways that cause others to react with anger and resentment. Prophets are not easy people to live with since they are intensely more conscious of what remains to be done, of what is not right, than content with what is. Prophets do not act out of anger – although their words may be angry. They act out of intense love for those whom they see being denied their rightful place at the banquet table of the King. They speak harsh words at times to shake us from our complacency and to make us think of who we really are and what we are called to become. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel writes:

God has thrust a burden upon [the prophet’s] soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man; no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world. 7

Jesus is the prophet par excellence, the one who understood more than anyone the most profound compassion that lies at the heart of God. As Jesus looked on the poor, the broken, the lonely, the abandoned, His heart was moved with immeasurable sorrow. The Greek word for compassion used most commonly in the New Testament is splagchnoisomai; “it means to let one’s innards embrace the feeling or situation of another.” 8 Confronted with the reality of human pain and anguish, Jesus responded with this heart-felt oneness with the suffering sister or brother:

Jesus made a tour through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness. And when he saw the crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:35-36; see also Mark 6:34).

Despite personal grief over the loss of His cousin John, the plight of the poor and sick took priority over His personal need:

When Jesus received this news [of John the Baptist’s beheading], he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But the people heard of this and, leaving the towns, went after him on foot. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them and healed their sick (Matt.14:13-14).

Faced with the hunger of and possible danger to the masses of people who had followed Him, Jesus was not content with “well-there’s-nothing-we-can-do” attitude. His solidarity with their dilemma forced Him to look for solutions:

And now once again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat. So he called his disciples to him and said to them, ‘I feel sorry for all these people; they have been with me for three days now and have nothing to eat. If I send them off home hungry they will collapse on the way; some have come a great distance’ (Mark 8:1-4).

Jewish law considered leprosy and death such dread realities that all who came into contact with them were to be considered “unclean,” “impure.” Jesus, defying the prohibitions, not only heals the leper and brings the widow’s son back to life. He reaches out and touches the leper, He puts His hand on the pallet bearing the body of the dead man. He heals human sickness and overcomes the power of death not from a distance but by entering fully into these loathsome realities. Prophets not only spoke God’s Word from the heart of compassion but acted in ways that made clear the living presence of that tender mercy:

A leper came to him and pleaded on his knees: ‘If you want to,’ he said, ‘you can cure me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured’ (Mark 1:40-41) 

When [Jesus] was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow . . . When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her. ‘Do not cry,’ he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you to get up’ (Luke 7:12-15).

By Jesus’ willingness to forget Himself, to seek solutions to the human dilemma, to enter deeply into the depths of human devastation, He helped to bring about a new reality. This is a further dimension of the prophetic task. Prophets help to make things new, different, closer to God’s dream and plan for the world both by their words and their actions. The sick were healed; the dejected were given hope and instruction; the hungry were fed; the outcast leper was reunited to society; the dead man and his widowed mother were given a new beginning and saved from despair.

All this is possible only if there is compassion, a willingness to enter into the sorrow, the pain, the agony of another. Jesus shows us that this is God’s way of bringing newness to all of humankind, the coming of the divine Reign. All this, however, requires passion – “fire”! The prophet feels, lives, experiences life intensely – at times, painfully – but it is because the prophet’s heart is in tune with the heart of God. Comfort is far from the prophet’s mind. Jesus, speaking of the greatest of the prophets, John the Baptist, challenges His listeners:

What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swaying in the breeze? No? Then what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? Oh no, those who go in for fine clothes and live luxuriously are to be found at court! Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet . . . (Luke 7:25-26)

The missionary must be willing to enter into the sorrow and pain of God as God beholds the world. For it is only in this way that the missionary can be a man or a woman of the Beatitudes:

Happy those who mourn: they shall be comforted. Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right: they shall be satisfied (Matt. 5:5-6).

The person willing to enter into the fiery heart of God will know grief, will know incompleteness but also has the promise of truly abundant life, comfort, consolation, and – one day with all the broken, little, lonely, seemingly hopeless ones – will find complete satisfaction and joy. This is the life of the missionary; this is the life of the prophet. This is at the heart of the Missionary Cenacle vocation: “He came to cast a fire on the earth, and he willed that it would be enkindled (Luke 12:49). The Holy Spirit has enkindled this fire in our hearts” (Rule of Life #1).

8 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, p. 86.

7 Heschel, Prophets, v. 1, p. 5.

6 Heschel, Prophets v. 1, p. 26.

5 Two excellent books on the nature of prophecy in the Scriptures are Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Fortress Press, 1978) and Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Row,1962). The Biblical basis for most of the reflections in this part of the commentary can be found in these two works.

See Heschel, Prophets v. 1, p. 5.