Our prophetic mission

Fr. Roy Cimagala

WE have to remind ourselves of our role as prophets these days. We have to understand that to be a prophet is an integral part of our Christian identity.

We all share in different ways in the prophetic mission of Christ and the Church, because we are made in God’s image and likeness, and somehow commissioned also by Christ to go “preach to all nations….”

It is not just for a few who have some talent and knack for it. Of course, different people have different ways of doing and living it, and there can be a kind of hierarchy involved among them.

Thus, prophecy is something done all the time. It covers all aspects of our life, and not just confined or focused on certain fields like business and politics, much less, on some controversial issues only.

What makes this whole business more exciting these days is that it seems that to be prophetic involves only the bishops and priests and that they do so when concerned almost exclusively about politics.

We get the impression that prophesying is reduced to things political. Some bishops, priests and religious talk about being prophets only when they want to say something about political issues.

Not that they can’t. In fact, they should in some opportune moments. To be sure, to be a real prophet in politics can be considered as one of the highest, if most difficult, way of exercising the prophetic mission. It’s just that being a prophet involves a lot more than what they so far are showing in public.

It requires not only the sacraments, but also the doctrine well assimilated and lived. It requires a living union with God, a real sanctity and genuine integrity, and not just put-on patina of righteousness.

It requires a lot of patience, broadness of mind, prudence, flexibility, capacity to integrate varying and often competing factors. It requires discretion, fortitude, rectitude of intention, good manners and even cheerfulness, and, of course, charity.

It also involves a constant effort to evangelize, not only in the big things like business, politics and other social concerns, but also and mainly in the little and ordinary things that are with us always.

To be a prophet in politics is actually a must. We just need also to know how to respect the nature and character of politics, just like any other temporal and earthly affairs we have.

There is a certain autonomy in politics that needs to be understood and handled well. It’s this autonomy that precludes easy dogmatization of views and positions that in itself are open to opinion. It attracts pluralism of views that should be respected.

The clergy’s role of prophet in politics is in preaching Christ and infusing the spirit of Christ in our political life and discourse. It’s not in ramming our views on others just because we think they are the right ones. That would be a kind of tyranny and dictatorship, of unhealthy clericalism. Christ preferred to die on the cross rather than fall to these practices.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com