[ Today's Readings ]
The LORD wants to strengthen us so that we can be prophetic even when there is fierce opposition. This opposition is actually inevitable.
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
If we follow Jesus we end up facing the same persecution that he does.
Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours (see John 15:20).
How can the word of love be so divisive? How can salvation and mercy create so much opposition?
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil (see John 3:19).
Sometimes our words have to be like those of Jeremiah. They can be words which demoralize "the soldiers who are left in this city, and all the people, by speaking such things to them". They are like this precisely because we cannot ever affirm the darkness. We must give warning when society chooses evil rather than love. It is not loving to affirm an alcoholic in his alcoholism and encourage him to continue in it. Rather we are called to love him at a deeper level, as a person, as a child of God, even if this does not feel loving to him at the time.
In order to be prophetic ourselves and in order not to stifle or ignore the voices of other prophets we must keep "our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith." Only then can we rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us without growing weary and losing heart in a world which opposes this message.
If they throw us in the cistern our hope must be in the one who can set us free again.
The LORD heard my cry.
He drew me out of the pit of destruction,
out of the mud of the swamp;
he set my feet upon a crag;
he made firm my steps.
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