3 August 2020
Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Vatican II asked the church to “read the signs of the times in the light of faith.” But what does this mean in our daily lives? Today’s reading gives us a clue as a biblical example of reading the signs of the times in the light of faith. In the first reading, there are dueling divine prophecies that are contradictory. On the one hand is Jeremiah’s prophecy which says that Israel would be yoked under the captivity and rule of Babylon, and that this new state of affairs was God’s punishment and judgement, and that their freedom would come after a long time of exile. On the other hand, there is the prophecy of Hananiah, who declared that God would deliver his people from the yoke of Babylon and that he would restore Israel to peace and prosperity very soon. How was Israel to read the signs of the times in the light of faith here? Both cannot be true, one was harsh, and one was pleasant, but which one was true? Jeremiah offers the people a tool to help for their discernment: only one prophecy stands in harmony with the authentic prophetic tradition of the past. The light of faith that would guide the reading of the correct sign of God’s prophecy was fact the God speaks in certain recognizable patterns in history that can guide discernment in the present. One of the patterns of authentic divine utterances is consistency between past revelations and present ones. Jeremiah refers to this idea when he appeals to the prophetic tradition in today’s readings as a light for the people’s discernment. His prophecy can be seen to be true in the light of the prophetic tradition of the past even thought his was not a pleasant one. The situation in Jeremiah’s day is mirrored throughout history even in our own day. There will be times when competing claims come before us appealing to divine authority. This could be in our personal prayer; this could be in competing voices between churches or within our church etc. What shall help us read these signs of our times in the light of faith? Like in the time of Jeremiah, we too can look to the deposit of faith of God’s revelation as taught by the Church’s Magisterium as a sure guide to help us distill which voices today speaks in harmony with God’s eternal tune and which ones are discordant.