Popularity and the Prophet 
 

      True prophets are rarely if ever popular.  Their efforts to fulfill their calling – as we see in the case of Amos in today’s first reading – are rewarded with persecution, or at least with the “invitation” to go elsewhere.  What, though, is their calling exactly?  Well, it’s to deliver a message, a message from God.  And, given the usual state of humanity, the message is rarely pleasant, at least not at first.  In today’s Gospel that communication from God, to be preached by the Apostles chosen by Christ, is summed up in the word “repentance.”  Again, not pleasant at first, and hardly ever popular, but then that’s because many hearers will only pay attention up until the initial unpleasantness and so miss out on the effects, the fruit that results from a human heart repenting.

      But what is “repentance”?  This word comes by way of translation into English from a Greek word that means a change of mind which results in an amendment of life.  Specifically, in the context of the Church established by Christ and commissioned by Him to be prophetic, repentance entails first of all a realization by the sinner that the road he is traveling on is going in the wrong direction (as “pleasant” as it may seem along the way, as described by our Lord Himself with the admonition, “for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction” – Matthew 7:13).  Destruction.  That’s the unpleasant part.  It is not easy to admit that the many miles of one’s life have been a movement toward a goal no one in his right mind (thus the need for a “change of mind”) would want to reach.  That goal is the genuinely unpleasant part; and the preaching of the Gospel is precisely good news, because it assures us that such destruction can, and must, be avoided.  There is another way, direction, to travel.

      But it is not very popular.  To expound on the above verse from Matthew’s Gospel, “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”  This is tragically illustrated in Dante’s Divine Comedy in the scene where Dante enters onto the first level of Purgatory (the place where the remnants of pride are purged) through a massive, but narrow gate that loudly creaks on its hinges – a sign that it is rarely opened. 

      Our Lord follows up on the words above with a warning pertinent to our subject:  “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves,” those who would claim to speak for God, but who really only endeavor to say and preach what they perceive people want to hear.  That is, they seek to be popular.  And, in a real sense – given the weakness of human nature – no wonder, when one contemplates the fate of most of the Old Testament prophets (Amos among

them), who were derided, banished, tortured or martyred.  And the same is true in the New Testament:  St. John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded because he denounced a king’s unlawful “marriage.” 

      Most telling for our times are the vignettes of the early Church presented to us in the last book of the Bible, where Christ commissions St. John the Evangelist to prophesy by writing to the Seven Churches in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and more than once commends or condemns these early Christians either for their opposition to or compromise with a poisonous sect within the Christian communities – the “Nicolaitans,” who advocated a “freedom” from the moral law that celebrated, among other things, sexual liaisons outside of the covenant of marriage between husband and wife. 

      Easily, no aspect of the Catholic Church is more unpopular these days than her refusal to accept the false prophets of the “sexual revolution.”  She is constantly being exhorted by the powers of this world and by many a wolf in sheep’s clothing (and even occasionally by a wolf in “shepherd’s” clothing) to “come to terms with the modern world,” etc.  Pundits, prominent laity, political Nicolaitans, and oh-so-with-it priests urge the Church to “be reasonable”; otherwise, we keep being warned, people will abandon the Catholic Faith…yes, as we’ve seen, the “gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.”  Quite popular, and most unpleasant.

      How do we recognize false prophets, these panderers after popularity?  “You will know them by their fruits,” our Lord answers.  Look, please, dear brothers and sisters, at the fruits of the sexual revolution:  the heartbreak – especially among women – of being used, as well as the heartbreak of divorce and abortion; the breakdown of the basic unit of society, the family; the proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases; the soulless loneliness of pornography, and so on. 

      That’s truly the unpleasant part, that state of human life that is now all around us, a tragedy, but yet something that can be used to urge us to repent, to change our minds and so also the direction of our lives.  The goal, too, of this new direction and movement – through the narrow gate and along the difficult path – should urge us on… toward life.  After all, Christ, the Good Shepherd, came among us for this very purpose:  to get us to repent, change directions, and obtain from Him the very fullness of life.  His Church, founded on the Apostles – those first Christian messengers, prophets, sent out to proclaim the Good News of repentance and salvation – carries on Christ’s work.  This is not a popularity contest.  The Church as the missionary of God does not strive to be popular, but to make Christ known – Christ who challenges us with a narrow gate and a difficult way and yet also lures us on with His assured promise of both escaping destruction and sharing in His life.