Avengers without love are not prophets. At the same time, lovers without a sense of accountability are
not prophets either. The prophetic figure brings to a situation full of despair the face of feeling and
the face of hope, the one who suffers because of us and believes in us at the same time. The prophet
drags us by the hair of the head, if necessary, to the heights of our capacity and against our own worst
will. The prophet comes with a father’s zeal and a mother’s love breathing the word of God and saying
“I love you” at the same time.
There is a major difference between a critic and a prophet. Critics stand outside a system and mock it.
Prophets remain clear-eyed and conscientious inside a sinful system and love it anyway. It is easy to
condemn the country, for instance. It is possible to criticize the church. But it is prophetic to love
both church and country enough to want them to be everything they claim to be—just, honest, free,
equal—and then to stay with them in their faltering attempts to do so even if it is you yourself against
whom both church and state turn in their attempts to evade the prophetic truth of the time.
The French papacy of Avignon did not want to hear the call of Catherine of Sienna but, in the end, she
prevailed and they returned the Holy See to Rome. The powers that be did not want to hear Joan of
Arc and killed her to silence her, but in the end, her prophetic word outlasted them all. Neither
church nor state wanted to hear Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton in their pleas for the poor and their
prophetic cry for peace, but in the end, it is their messages that expose the secularization of the
church, that haunt it at the turn of every gospel page, that challenge it to this day and that have
marked its best presence in these times.
To claim then that to criticize the government is treason, to insist that to criticize the church is
disunity may be the greatest perfidy and the deepest infidelity of all. It is a prophet’s lot to risk both so
that what is worth loving can be lovable again.
“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love,” Gandhi wrote. “It is the prerogative of the brave.” It is the
prerogative of those who are willing to pay the price of being a prophet. The horrible truth is that
prophecy is not a harsh and heartless thing at all. Prophecy is unrequited love gone mad with hope.
–from The Cry of the Prophet: A Call to Fullness of Life by Joan Chittister
not prophets either. The prophetic figure brings to a situation full of despair the face of feeling and
the face of hope, the one who suffers because of us and believes in us at the same time. The prophet
drags us by the hair of the head, if necessary, to the heights of our capacity and against our own worst
will. The prophet comes with a father’s zeal and a mother’s love breathing the word of God and saying
“I love you” at the same time.
There is a major difference between a critic and a prophet. Critics stand outside a system and mock it.
Prophets remain clear-eyed and conscientious inside a sinful system and love it anyway. It is easy to
condemn the country, for instance. It is possible to criticize the church. But it is prophetic to love
both church and country enough to want them to be everything they claim to be—just, honest, free,
equal—and then to stay with them in their faltering attempts to do so even if it is you yourself against
whom both church and state turn in their attempts to evade the prophetic truth of the time.
The French papacy of Avignon did not want to hear the call of Catherine of Sienna but, in the end, she
prevailed and they returned the Holy See to Rome. The powers that be did not want to hear Joan of
Arc and killed her to silence her, but in the end, her prophetic word outlasted them all. Neither
church nor state wanted to hear Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton in their pleas for the poor and their
prophetic cry for peace, but in the end, it is their messages that expose the secularization of the
church, that haunt it at the turn of every gospel page, that challenge it to this day and that have
marked its best presence in these times.
To claim then that to criticize the government is treason, to insist that to criticize the church is
disunity may be the greatest perfidy and the deepest infidelity of all. It is a prophet’s lot to risk both so
that what is worth loving can be lovable again.
“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love,” Gandhi wrote. “It is the prerogative of the brave.” It is the
prerogative of those who are willing to pay the price of being a prophet. The horrible truth is that
prophecy is not a harsh and heartless thing at all. Prophecy is unrequited love gone mad with hope.
–from The Cry of the Prophet: A Call to Fullness of Life by Joan Chittister
CRITIC OR PROPHET
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