Back to school. Back to College.  Back to reading, writing essays, assignments, homework.  Back to the learning environment, timetables, routine. September is that month.

Education and its role in our lives is so fundamental, important and crucial to how our lives take shape and the opportunities it gives us.  Now, more than ever, we need, we must be, informed, know the true facts and be able to discern and determine what is false (“fake news”) from what is true. We must be able to distinguish, discern the true Prophet from the false one.  The prophet who benefits or whose supporters benefit from the message they proclaim.  

In today’s first reading we are being reminding of what it means to be a Prophet, a prophet like Ezekiel. We too have a responsibility, a concern, a task, to call out injustice, stand up for the vulnerable, and ensure that we are doing what we have all been called to do. We are called to be a city on the hilltop; a Lamp on the stand lighting the whole room. Matthew 5:13. Because we will all be made accountable for not speaking up when we are called to do so. The “sin of silence”.  If our hearers don’t listen, then the onus and the guilt is on them.  God clearly tells Ezekiel that he has a duty and a responsibility to announce this message and if he doesn’t and it happens, he will be held responsible for the tragedy. But if he does give the message and the people ignore him those who ignore him bear the responsibility.

Our world, our leaders, our communities, we ourselves, constantly need reminding of this and our responsibility, our duty, to speak out. True authentic love is always our baseline, our motivator, and always fulfils the Law, as St Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans.

Fr Ambrose McCambridge OSB