The Prophets

Once again the failure of the priests to impart Torah was responsible for the people not ‘knowing’, that they were no longer in loving unity with their God. So the people were thrown into a crisis of identity. God personally had to intervene once more, rising up prophets. They were to remind the priestly caste why it had been established. They were to recall the people to its original calling: that of being a listening, priestly and holy people, living in a covenant with God.

“A prophet is a person who does not allow a means to become an end, the outward forms to be pursued and served for their own sake, …who constantly reminds us that the real truth of the present lies further in the future and at a higher level, who fiercely points to the spirit that lies behind every shape of the letter” (Yves Congar).

Prophets belong to their time. “In what sort of circumstances do prophets arise? A short answer is to say that they appear when they are needed. What sort of times are these? They are times when the community has forgotten its calling and has somehow become fixed or self-satisfied.

So it is unable to carry out its mission because it is no longer aware of what that mission is. When the people of God had achieved a certain amount of worldly prosperity and power through war, diplomacy and trade, it was easy to forget that they were dependent on the call of God, and that this is what they were for. They did not realize that they were God’s people, and not their own people with God on their side, as they were sometimes inclined to think. The mission of the prophets then was essentially to recall the people to their original vocation” (R. Haughton).

CCFMC, Lesson Unit 5, C 4