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Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time, Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Jeremiah 26:11–16, 24
Today, Jeremiah is on trial.
His crime?
He has spoken against Jerusalem and against the temple.
He has warned the people that if they do not repent, the city will fall.
The priests and the prophets want him dead.
They say:
“This man deserves death.”
But the officials of Judah defend Jeremiah.
They remember the prophet Micah, who had also spoken against Jerusalem.
Micah had said:
“Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins.”
Yet King Hezekiah did not put Micah to death.
Instead, he feared the Lord and begged for mercy.
So the question is clear:
Will Judah listen to Jeremiah as Hezekiah listened to Micah?
Or will they silence him?
The reading today omits another important example.
There was another prophet, Uriah, who also spoke against Jerusalem.
He fled to Egypt to save his life.
But King Jehoiakim sent men after him.
They brought him back, killed him, and threw his body into the burial place of common people.
So Jeremiah stands between two memories.
Micah was heard.
Uriah was killed.
What will happen to Jeremiah?
For us, the answer seems obvious.
Listen to the prophet.
Repent.
Pray for mercy.
But for Jeremiah’s contemporaries, it was not obvious.
They believed they were innocent.
They saw no reason for God’s anger.
They could not understand why judgment should come.
Abraham Heschel once wrote that our greatest tragedy is the inability to see our own sins.
When people cannot see their own sins, no words of a prophet can help them.
This is not only an ancient problem.
It is also ours.
We live in an age of terrible power.
Nuclear weapons can destroy civilization.
Consumer culture is turning creation into a garbage dump.
Climate change is already wounding the poor, the land, and future generations.
Artificial intelligence also brings new questions about human dignity, power, truth, and control.
And still, many people do not want to be disturbed.
Those who warn us are often treated like Jeremiah.
Some call them traitors.
Some call them troublemakers.
Some say they are too negative.
But sometimes the uncomfortable voice is the voice that loves us most.
Judah’s tragedy was that history proved Jeremiah right.
But by then, it was too late.
In our case, the stakes are even higher.
A nuclear war or ecological disaster would be too terrible a price to pay just to prove our prophets right.
May Jeremiah teach us to listen before it is too late.
May we not be blind to our sins.
May we hear those who defend life, truth, and creation.
And may their warning lead us not to fear,
but to repentance,
conversion,
and action.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
(Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).