Becoming Prophets of Love and Truth
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time – November 16, 2025
At different times in our lives, we all need a “wake-up” call. Especially as children!! Written 400 years before the coming of Jesus, Malachai means ‘messenger’. And, just as this is the last prophet before John the Baptist, and the last ‘book’ in the Old Testament, often in our lives we get a ‘last’ chance to change before judgement comes.
However, the message is deeper than “change or I will destroy you!” In Malachai 2, Israel started accusing God of letting the wicked prosper, with little justice for the those who were not wicked! How often do we feel the same? Especially in Kenya where we see so much corruption. What is the point of being honest?
And now, in Malachai 3, God sends the message we have today, to encourage the “minority” of people who are doing the right thing: that the wicked will be “destroyed” and the virtuous will receive “healing.” But who are the wicked? It’s easy to point out the wickedness in others, but not so easy to admit there is wickedness in me:
For sure, we are probably all humble and say: I know I’m not perfect but I don’t do bad things like, really bad things! Usually the challenge is, of course, that we are not very critical of our own faults: we rationalise them away because of this or that reason. The symbols used in the text are not completely bad: fire has a cleansing dimension, wiping away rubbish such as germs on a needle. And, as any farmer knows, the burned stubble becomes wonderful ash fertiliser.
Of course, the transformation of stubble through fire is severe, and God wants us to know it, so that we might make changes before our suffering becomes too much. When God says there will be no root or stem left, it does not mean we lose everything, but we lose the things we took false comfort in, in place of God and each other.
Without the ‘root and stem’, we will depend totally on God: become again salt and light for the world with energy to serve others, and for us to find true peace.
This is similar to the message of Jesus in the Gospel; that the gold and silver in the Temple, which the Pharisees placed so much trust in, would soon be lost and the Temple destroyed (by the Romans in 70 AD). At that point in time, the people would have to think deeply about how and where they can encounter God.
This is when the small Christian communities, which formed after the death and resurrection of Jesus, become a revelation of the first reading: “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will shine out with healing in its rays.”
So, rather than being the end of the road for the wicked, God’s love for all people truly shines out through the small number of faithful people scattered throughout the world: the faithful people become the revelation of God’s love.
Unfortunately, the faithful people are warned that they may be persecuted by others before the truth is revealed. And we might ask: why? Why is it that the more faithful people seem to be, they are the ones who suffer more? Let us reflect for a moment on a one or two thoughts:
1) when we buy an expensive product, we want to see that it performs as it is supposed to: seeing is believing;
2) when we were children, and sometimes older, what were the moments when we realised that mum/ dad really loved us?
When we saw our parents choosing to keep loving us after our selfish or stupid acts have caused them pain or loss, we usually feel deep remorse and feel amazed that they still love us. That deep love is a beautiful reflection of God’s love for us, seen in the suffering of Jesus.
In the context of the Gospel, Jesus has just warned everyone that false prophets will come: “‘Take care not to be deceived,’ he said ‘because many will come using my name and saying, “I am he” and, “The time is near at hand.” Refuse to join them.’”
How do we tell the true prophets from the false? Like our parents, true prophets will be willing to suffer a bit for the truth: they won’t like it, but they will do it for love, for God, for truth. So, sadly, the proof is in the pudding as they say in English: likewise for prophets.
Today is a moment, as we draw the Church year to a close, to take time to ask who, or what, we depend on? Are they true prophets? Or are we, as AC/DC aptly put it: on the highway to hell?
Many people, including myself until recently, always view today’s readings as threats of judgement and then throw out the unworthy: the naughty people. But, if we look back to All Souls, 2nd November, we’ll see John’s Gospel (6:39) where Jesus exclaims: “Now the will of him who sent me is that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me.”
Fr Richard Rohr says that the happy people, in the second half of life, are those who have found some way to serve others. I pray we can persevere with generosity toward others, so that fear of the future and fear of judgement to come will disappear, because we will become love.
By Gerard Conlan, OMI
