Jump to:

• Word to Life • This week's readings

• Pope's Prayer Intentions • Prayer for St. Raphael Cathedral

God protects: Those who speak the truth

	Word to Life  Jeff Hensley

If we know or have known anyone of a prophetic turn of either personality or calling, we can guess why this week's Scriptures have been clustered as they have.

Putting together the Old and New Testament descriptions of the prophet and his or her relationship to God with Paul's exaltation of the gift of love is no mistake.

The book of Jeremiah is one of the few books of the Bible I've read from first chapter to last in one or two sittings. When you do it that way, what emerges from Jeremiah's heroic efforts and his trials and persecutions is the great love he had for the people of Israel. His primary motivation was not truth with a capital T, but love with a capital L.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007) Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19 Psalm 71:1-6, 15-17 Corinthians 12:31--13:13 Gospel: Luke 4:21-30

But the psalm, the Jeremiah reading, and the Luke passage all make clear that when the prophet is obedient, speaking God's word to his people while knowing it likely will cause their anger, God himself will protect the prophet.

The call to speaking forth obediently is implicit, but God's protection is explicit. In Luke, when Jesus offers a message that is ill-received, God's literal protection of his life is described, not just promised.

My dad will turn 91 the last day of this month, the Lord willing. During much of his working life he was a church, civic, and business leader. In various organizations as well as in his church and business life, it was sometimes necessary for him to "speak truth to power." Sometimes, though not always, there were consequences: lost jobs, rejection by others. But always, God was faithful. My dad never fell into irredeemable circumstances in any area of his life.

Now, in his later years, he is proving the truth of the excellence of the gift of love.

	Reflection questions • In what way can we prepare our hearts and our lives to be able to hear God's words and apply them, first of all to ourselves? • How has God used you to speak his word to others?

With his active and working years behind him and my mom gone, he finds meaning and purpose in offering appreciation and love to others whose lives come into contact with his own. And because he is still active, caring for himself, that includes quite a number of folks.

"There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love."

This column is presented in cooperation with the North Texas Catholic of Fort Worth, Texas.