You Must Prophesy

When the angel told Saint John "Here, take and eat this scroll. It will taste sweet but will sour in your stomach" in today's first reading, my first thought was my birthday celebration last Sunday at my daughter and son-in-law’s home.  After lunch, we went back to their house and they had ordered me my favorite dessert of all time, a lemon meringue pie.  They sliced it up and gave me a sizable portion to taste.  The meringue was perfect and sweet, but I found the lemon custard (made from real lemons, not that stuff you buy in the stores) was a bit on the sour side.  Over the next two days, somehow the lemon got less tart and sweeter and was absolutely delicious by Tuesday when I finished it off.  It didn’t make my stomach upset, as the reading from Revelation says, but the analogy was furthered along by today’s responsorial Psalm.

The Psalm says, "How sweet to my taste is your promise!" The Good News from God is always wonderful, but when we have to share the truth with those who will reject us, it churns in our stomachs, or leaves a sour taste in our mouth.  Jesus spoke the truth in the Gospel passage, and the chief priests, leaders and scribes plotted to destroy him. Who can stomach that kind of rejection and then do it again?

God told John, "You must prophesy." Through our baptisms, we all share in Christ's divine role as prophet. We must prophesy! But not as fortune tellers; that is Satan's twisted warp on it. And not by nagging someone with the truth; that's casting pearls before swine, which Jesus warned against. To be a prophet means to speak the truth to those who need to hear it, but only when God chooses the timing and gives us the words to speak.

We are held accountable for every word that we use or misuse. We are also held accountable for every word he asks us to utter that we do not speak because we're afraid that someone's reaction might upset our stomachs.

To be God's voice here on earth, we must first live the truth, learning it from scripture and Church teachings, letting it change our own lives, and humbly going to Confession for the times we've rejected the truth. Since we can never fully grasp the truth, we must continually study, learn, and live the truth.

Secondly, we must stay in prayer to discern God's will, and thirdly, we must rely on the Holy Spirit's inspiration rather than on our personal emotions and agendas.

And when the sweet taste of his Word turns sour in our stomach or leaves that bad taste in our mouth, we have the satisfaction of knowing that it has united us to St. John and to Jesus.