Main news for 21 October 2009

That this is true is beyond doubt: everyone can recall his relationships with his closest relatives. But why is it so? Perhaps because we expect a prophet to be something extraordinary, almost superhuman, while God gives the gift of prophecy to completely ordinary people. If we do not know such a person closely, he is unusual to us and we are ready to accept him as a prophet; but what is unusual in someone close to us? And so we easily accept as prophecies various ideas that come from outside, while our own prophets, people such as Vernadsky, Vavilov, Solzhenitsyn, are ridiculed, left to rot in camps, or expelled from the country. After all, perfect pitch is also a gift, but it does not depend at all on whether we accept it or not; prophecy, if it is not heard, as if does not exist. Well and good, because a prophet rarely says things pleasant to us!

And now the main question: what should we do with this? The answer must be sought in the Gospel. We are called to love both near and distant neighbor, seeing in each the image of God, and therefore a mystery that can never be fully comprehended. Then every person is astonishing to us, and through every person God can say something very important to us.