Friday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 31, 2020

The Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Jeremiah 26:1-9

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, this message came from the Lord: “Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the house of the Lord and speak to the people of all the cities of Judah who come to worship in the house of the Lord; whatever I command you, tell them, and omit nothing. Perhaps they will listen and turn back, each from his evil way, so that I may repent of the evil I have planned to inflict upon them for their evil deeds. Say to them: Thus says the Lord: If you disobey me, not living according to the law I placed before you and not listening to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send you constantly though you do not obey them, I will treat this house like Shiloh, and make this the city to which all the nations of the earth shall refer when cursing another.”  Now the priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the Lord. When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord bade him speak to all the people, the priests and prophets laid hold of him, crying, “You must be put to death! Why do you prophesy in the name of the Lord: ‘This house shall be like Shiloh,’ and ‘This city shall be desolate and deserted’?” And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

In this reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah we see once again how he may be understood as a figure for Christ, prefiguring the Lord’s own actions, especially those recalled by St. John in his Gospel. 

God tells Jeremiah to address “the people of all the cities of Judah”.  The message is not for the king or the corrupt ruling class, including the priests,  but for everyone who has come to worship God in the temple.  This is significant because these people have come on pilgrimage in fulfillment of the law of Moses.  It is to these that God says, through Jeremiah, “If you disobey me, not living according to the law . . . I will treat this house like Shiloh.”  While the people were obeying the law in this instance, they were also worshipping other gods in their cities.  It is also worth noting that God rebukes the people for not heeding the words of “my servants the prophets.”  The law of Moses does not speak of the need to obey prophets, although Moses does say on one occasion that God would send a prophet one day.  The prophets appeared irregularly in Israel after the time of Solomon until before the time of the Maccabees, a period of perhaps seven hundred years, and only Elijah and Elisha seem to have performed miracles, but these charismatic figures attracted followings and wielded a certain influence with the kings and people.

“I will treat this house like Shiloh.”  The Ark of the Covenant had been enshrined in the northern city of Shiloh for over three hundred years after the conquest of the Promised Land by Joshua and the twelve tribes.  For centuries, Shiloh was the holy city of the Israelites and they went there from all parts of the land to worship God.  The city seems to have been destroyed by the Philistines when they captured the Ark in the time of Saul.  Through Jeremiah, God warns his people that the holiness of the temple will not protect it if those who worship within it do not abandon their idols and follow the whole law.  This warning would have sounded most extreme, and people would have doubted that God could say such a thing.  

“The priests and the prophets laid hold of him.”  These “prophets” worked in the temple and its courtyard, primarily advising pilgrims on family and business matters, perhaps even venturing to speak of the future, but they had no official role in temple worship, nor did they interpret or teach the Scriptures, though they attempted to interpret dreams.  They were not divinely inspired.  We might be reminded here of how the Jewish leaders and the Pharisees tried to seize hold of Jesus when he preached in the temple.

“You must be put to death!”  The descendants of these priests and prophets would one day shout, “Crucify him, crucify him!”  Jeremiah does not himself lift a hand to harm the temple, nor does he call upon the people to destroy it.  He simply conveys God’s warning.  The people could have considered the warning and decided whether to act on it or not, and then continue about their business, but they must have Jeremiah’s blood.  Led by the priests and prophets, they “gathered about” Jeremiah, as though to kill him in God’s own house.  They will not hear that they need to convert.  They will not think whether they have been disobeying God by their idolatry.  His words remind them sharply of their guilt.

We should examine our own souls by this episode in the life of the Prophet.  We come to Mass, we worship God, we support his Church, but away from the church building do we carefully keep God’s law?  Do we excuse ourselves from inconvenient aspects of it or look for loopholes from it?  Inasmuch as we “are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3, 16), we ought to exercise vigilance lest we suffer the fate of Shiloh, and of the temple, which was destroyed twice.

We pray today for the return to the spirit of St. Ignatius of Loyola by the modern Jesuits.