Homily for Saturday, 7 July 2018– Ferial

Saturday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time

Our Lady's Saturday, optional memorial

Readings of the day: Amos 9:11-15; Psalm 85:9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14; Matthew 9: 14-17

This homily was given at St. Cecilia Church,  St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Rochester, NY, USA. 

How would most of us characterize prophets? If we have been following the prophet Amos, from whom our first readings at Mass over the last several days have been drawn, might we have the impression of a prophet as somebody dour, who is usually frowning at, complaining, and criticizing the people?

We would not be faulted, I do not think, for understanding prophets in this way, as usually pessimistic characters, the longer we hear the likes of Amos, who is one of the more pointed and critical of the Old Testament prophets. Of course, there are more and less hopeful-sounding prophets than Amos in the Old Testament. We might think of Isaiah, on the one hand, as the author of some of the most hopeful, consoling passages in Scripture. On the other hand, if we think Amos is dour and critical, we might compare him favourably with somebody like Jeremiah. Of late, I am becoming more appreciative of the English word “jeremiad,” named after the prophet Jeremiah, in case any of us are looking for a synonym for “bitter rant.” (Who knows whether this may be a clue in a word puzzle in the newspaper sometime?)

In contrast to his criticisms of the Israelite society of his day that we have been hearing for several days, today we hear the prophet Amos strike a more hopeful and encouraging tone. The royal house of David, which had been reduced to a “fallen hut,” will be raised up and reinforced again, Amos says. The people of Israel, who would be exiled to the surrounding nations after the time of Amos, would eventually be returned from exile to their former land and prosperity, never to be overrun and exiled again: “I will plant them upon their own ground; never again shall they be plucked from the land I have given them,” God says through Amos.

As in Amos’ time, do we not know of prophets in our own time? One of the first prophets of recent memory, off the top of my head, is the Salvadoran archbishop and martyr Oscar Romero. When Pope Francis spoke almost three years ago to Congress, he named four historical prophets of these United States: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Each of these figures, including Pope Francis himself, have shown a prophetic tendency to criticize, fearlessly and sometimes loudly, the evils of individuals and of societies. But prophets do not only complain and criticize; if they do, they are not prophets but useless, angry complainers. They are the “prophets of doom” whom another prophetic figure, “Good Pope John” XXIII, warned against when he announced the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

A true prophet— and we may certainly include Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Oscar Romero, and even Pope Francis himself among true prophets— may complain and criticize when individual and social sin needs firm correction, but they will always offer the people hope to balance their jeremiads. The same is true of Amos in today’s first reading, all of the Biblical prophets, and all prophets before and after them.