1. -      The experience of faith means to listen to God’s Word and to announce it, it means to talk in the name of God. It is a prophetic experience. We can ask ourselves, which are the tokens of the true prophet? We may recall the Joel’s passage: Your sons and daughters will prophesy (Jl 3,1). And what the Council says: God’s people shares Christ’s prophetic function (LG 12; see Nm 11,29). It is to say that anybody can make prophesies. But, now, are there prophets to day?

2. -      In Israel, king, priest and prophet are for a long time the three guides of the society; different enough, they conflict very often, although they collaborate for the common welfare too. In this manner, the prophets illuminate the kings: Nathan, Elijah, Elisee, above all Isaiah and, in some moments, Jeremy. They should say if some action is what Gods want, if it is in agreement with God’s Word or not.

3. -      Nevertheless, the prophecy is not an institution like the monarchy or the priesthood: Israel can procure a king (Dt 17, 14-15), but not a prophet, pure God’s gift, promised gift (Dt 18,14-19), but freely given. This is well perceived during the periods of prophetic drought: there are no prophets anymore, the believer complains (Ps 74,9). Israel lives then waiting the promised prophet (1 Mac 4,46). In these circumstances the enthusiastic welcome given to John the Baptist predication is understood: the people was expecting (Lk 3,15). The prophecy was not normal; there had been substituted by the Scriptures and the chain of interpretative traditions..

4. -      The prophet announces a living and effective word (Heb 4,12), a word that is accomplished (Ezk 12,28); he is humble (Is 6,5); he truly tries to understand (Dn 10,12), he suffers persecution (Lk 6,23), he delivers a good fruit (Mt 7,17); he knows God’s plans (Am 3,7). On the contrary, the false prophet announces a deceiving word: he speaks to boast (Dt 18,22); he deceitfully cures people’s wounds (Jer 6, 13); he leads the people astray (23,13); he does not know God’s plans (23, 17-19); he acts for money (Mal 3,11); he does not suffer persecution (Lk 6,26); he is a wolf with sheep’s skin (Mt 7,15); he delivers a bad fruit (7,17); he is at the service of the powerful, the religious beast at the service of the political beast (Rev 13,11-18).

5. -      In some way, the prophetic experience is irresistible: his word in my heart is like a fire, says Jeremy (20, 9). And Amos: If Yahweh speaks, who will not prophesy? (3,8). Above the dread and other excuses, the prophet stays to God’s Word service: Now I have put my words in your mouth. See! Today I give you authority over nations and over kingdoms to uproot and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant (Jer 1,9-10). This is his motivation: The word was addressed to me.

6. -      The prophet is free and firm  (Sir 48,12), is not afraid nor surrenders: See, I will make you a fortified city, a pillar of iron with walls of bronze against all the nations, against the kings of Judah and their princes, against the priests and the people of the land, They will fight against you but shall not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue you  (Jer 1. 18 foll).

7. -      The prophets announce God’s action and call for conversion. They are the Covenant’s sentinels. They announce God’s action and his glory, the splendour of a living God who acts among the men. God manifests his glory by means of his mysterious interventions, his judgments, his signs (Ex 14,18). He comes to help to those who have confidence in Him. They, my people, see the glory of Yahweh, the majesty of our God. Give vigour to weary hands and strength to enfeebled knees. Say to those who are afraid: Have courage, do no fear¡ (Is 35,2-3).

8. -      The prophets denounce the attempts against human life: Woe to the one who builds a city on bloody foundations! (Hb 2,12); the adultery: Do not betray, then, the wife of your youth (Mal 2,15), the scandalous differences between poor and rich: Woe those who join house to house, who add field to field! (Is 5,8); the oppression that suffer the youngsters: You have trampled on the poor man (Am 5,11); the rapacity of the powerful: The spoil of the poor is in your houses (Is 3,14); the tyranny of the creditors with no entrails: Woe to him who amasses what is not his and fills himself with extorted pledges!. (Ha 2,6); the frauds of the merchants: Shall I approve your false scales and your bags of false weights? (Mi 6,11); the venality of the judges: Her leaders judge for a bribe (Mi 4,11); the avarice of the priest and false prophets: Her priests teach for a salary, her prophets prophecy for money (Mi 3,11); the hypocrisy of a religion that forgets the justice and the poor: On your fast days you do not lose anything and you oppress your labourers. (Is 58,3); the corruption of the temple that became a bandits cave (Jer 7,8-11; see Ez 23,37).

9. -      A society like this cannot last. If there is no conversion, if there is no justice, the violence, the sword will come. Peace is a fruit of justice. The prophet, like sentinel, is set to announce the people of all what is falling upon them. (Ez 33,6). In this sense, he announces the violent revolution. The prophet is responsible of the word that he listens.

10. -    It should not be strange to notice that the prophet step on a violent resistance. It is a verifiable fact to day like yesterday: The Wisdom of God also said: “I will send prophets and apostles and this people will kill and persecute some of them”, and the present generation will have to answer for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world…. Yes, I tell you, the people f this time will have to answer for them all.

11. -    Jesus of Nazareth appears among a prophetic tide; Zechariah (Lk 1,67), Simeon 2,25), Ana (2,36) and, above everybody, John the Baptist. John is the voice shouting in the dessert: prepare a way for the Lord (Mt 3,3). Jesus figure is less acetic than the one of John (Mt 9,14). Jesus begins his predication like the great prophets: This is the time of fulfilment; the kingdom of God is at hand: change your ways and believe the Good News (Mk 1,15; see Mt 3,2); he seeds the Word (Mk 4); he discerns the signs of the times (Mt 16,2 foll.); he denounces the religious hypocrisy (Mt 23) and the temple itself becoming a bandits cave (Mk 11,18); marginal of the institutions, he suffers persecution (Mt 23,37); the people gives him the title of prophet (Mt 16,14), and inclusive they see in him the expected prophet (Jn 6,14).

12. -    Jesus is something more; he is the Christ, the living Son of God (Mt 16,16). Later on, to announce God’s Word, it is to announce Christ word. Even more, Christ is in those who carry his word, in them he desires to be listened: Whoever listens to you listens to me; and whoever rejects you rejects me (Lk 10,16). Any one, according to his experience, can say if the Word vanished (see Ps 77,9) or if God continues speaking and, also, if prophets exist anymore.