Fourth Sunday of the Year C
30 January 2022
No prophet is acceptable in his own country.
When we consider the life and ministry of Jeremiah it is important not to lose sight of the fact that he, like all true Israelites, and indeed all Christians, lived under the law of love. We appreciate his life and ministry best if understand that he strove to grow continually in the love of God and neighbour. He did not forsake charity. His love of God was the guarantee of his fidelity to the Holy Spirit who inspired him. His love of his countrymen was the cause of the anguish which so often tormented him at the rejection of his word because he could perceive the catastrophic result of this hardness of heart and independence of judgement.
The life and ministry of Jeremiah foreshadowed that of Our Lord himself. Both foresaw that the rejection of their message would result in the destruction of Jerusalem. The love of Our Lord is expressed in his lament: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not.” That is the expression of the tender mercy of our God.
It is also a wonderful encouragement to us to ever greater confidence in God’s love for us. We can love because we know we ourselves are loved by God. The gift of robust and long-lasting friendship is also of inestimable value in the growth of our life in God, as we see in the lives of David and Jonathan. We know that the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts so that we may be able to recognise God’s gifts to us. These gifts are given for the building up of the Church in unity of faith and of charity. St Paul, in last Sunday’s reading likened the church to the human body in which each member has its own place and work. St Therese reminds us that the greatest work is that of loving: it is love that ensures unity, which is above all the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. By humble fidelity to our own vocation, to prayer and the ministry of charity, by conformity to Christ, we all contribute to that unity.
The first reading and the gospel encourage us to consider St Paul’s great hymn to charity in the context of Our Lord’s life and in the ministry of the prophets, above all that of Jeremiah, in which there was so much conflict. Our call to the perfection of love is a call also to humility, that great safeguard against conflict, to set the interests of others before our own. It is a call to humanitas, that delicate courtesy of which St Benedict speaks. These are the qualities we need to preserve and progress in charity, and to live in fidelity to the Gospel.
Dom Gregory Corcoran