Christian Prophetic Tradition: Our Heritage Today.
In the Biblical Tradition of Prophetism, we saw the Jesus is the only definitive prophet who brings to fulfillment the Old Testament Prophetic Tradition. Biblical Prophetism can be characterized by the following: (cf. Cristo Rey Garcia y Paredes, CMF)
1. The prophet has a profound conviction for the will of God.
2. The prophet has a profound conviction for the human condition.
3. When the two convictions don’t coincide, the prophet is burned from within.
4. The prophet explodes with prophetic eruption: denunciation of the evil in the human condition and the proclamation of the good news of the alternative of God for the people.
5. The prophet wages a prophetic rebellion.
6. The prophet engages in ethical confrontation.
7. The prophet enters into his/her own auto-criticism.
8. The prophet is purified by self-criticism in the audacious, fierce and free prophetic critique of church and society out of love and for love.
9. The prophet puts love and tenderness in the liberation and revolution.
10. The prophet lives and becomes a victim of his/her own prophecy.
In Jesus, this Biblical Prophetic Tradition finds fulfillment. His prophetism is characterized by
a. Radicalism in his critique of the human condition and profound conviction for God’s aspiration for the people and creation.
b. Maximalism in the service of God’s Reign.
c. A certain “abnormality”: he somehow did not fit into the normal way of doing and being.
Conclusion:
Today, the Church and the Religious Life and Communities of men and women are heirs of this great Christian Prophetic Tradition of Jesus. However, as described earlier, the post-EDSA Church and Religious life can now be characterized with the following:
a. “Minimalistic” in its service of God’s Reign.
b. It has lost the Primitive Radicalness of Jesus.
c. It is imprisoned in a charismatic routine.
d. It is lazy with a spiritual lukewarmness.
e. It is a life of rigidity and narrowness.
f. It is happy and comfortable in its bourgeois normality.
These characteristics bring narcissism and death.
To be active and live for the event of God’s Reign we need to go back and be rooted again to our great heritage of Christian Prophetic Tradition.
Where lies our life here on earth and our life in the resurrection?
In Activism as our creative way of living our fidelity to the Prophetic Tradition of Jesus.
Benjamin E. Alforque, MSC
March 15, 2021
Death Anniversary of Fr. Jules Chevalier, Founder, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
MSC Philippine Provincialate 22 Gilmore Ave., New Manila, Quezon City, Philippines
