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In the unsettling times we live in, I recognize the absolute need for prophetic voices to help me (us) see that creation is still good, that God is still in charge, and that God’s life-giving plan will ultimately be victorious. These prophets, however, don’t just fall from the sky like treats from a vending machine. Prophets are born out of painful calls of the suffering earth, its people, and from the persistent nudging from God. While I’ve known of prophets who lived half a world away, they are also here in our midst. For some reason, it’s always been easier to dismiss the local ones. Even Jesus had to admit that no prophet is ever accepted in their own country (Lk. 4:24).

Just like saints, prophets don’t hover over a place—they inhabit it. They are in our neighbourhoods, grocery stores, hair salons, and coffee shops. Often, they are portrayed as cranky, complaining, never satisfied, and generally hard to live with. If they are that way, it’s not because they hate the world; it’s because they are madly in love with it. The prophet loves the world so much that they are not afraid to tell the truth about it. Truth-telling is usually costly, though. When was the last time you saw a sign-up sheet posted at the entrance of a church soliciting prophets? Embracing the archetype of the prophet within you won’t make you popular, efficient, or safe. Reminds you of Jesus, doesn’t it? He even says, “Expect to be hated on account of my name” (Mt. 10:22). And in another place, “If the world hates you, it’s because it hated me first” (Jn. 15:18). Just by being associated with Jesus can bring hatred into the life of the prophet. Why? Because you belong to God before you belong to the world, and the world demands total allegiance which the prophet refuses to give.

A prophet doesn’t see his/her role as winning; they see it as witnessing to God’s plan for the world—a plan for justice, peace, mercy, caring and sharing. They witness to what is real and to what will endure when everything else is falling apart all around them. Prophets might be known for their hard edges, yet they are connected just as much to joy as they are to grief. Their deep faith and hope lie in a future in which love has the final say. Their hope is in tomorrow, but they hold onto that hope with us in our present situation, even and especially when our present situation is gloomy. Prophets don’t so much walk ahead of us as they walk beside us. They might even walk behind us, as well, calling us back to what we already knew before we learned to live without it. Maybe in that latter sense, young children can even be prophets in our midst.

Joy, rather than gloom-n-doom, is a much more appealing tool in the prophet’s toolbox. St. Philip Neri, who lived in Florence, Italy over 500 years ago was called “The Humorous Saint” for very good reasons. He made it clear to anyone wanting to join his religious order that, “I will have no melancholy, no low spirit in my house!” In spite of that, as he walked among the poor of Florence, he did everything he could to lift them from their melancholy and low spirits.

A final quote. If there is a role for the prophet, it is this: to slow us down enough to feel what we are doing, to speak the truth without fear or shame, to resist polarization and othering, to honour the presence of God everywhere, to grieve what we have normalized, to love with wild abandon, following where Love would lead us, and to imagine a future rooted not in escape, but in restoration. Not louder, not faster, just truer. Don’t wait for others to fill this role. It is a universal calling. Where are you called to tap into the prophet in you, for the good of the world? (Ned Abenroth)

~Fr. Phil