THE PROPHECY OF HIS PASSION


FRIDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT

Jer 20:10-13; Ps 18:2-7; Jn 10:31-42

The Prophecy of his loving Passion

We are just a week away from the commemoration of the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ; he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Church puts the prophecy of Jeremiah the prophet before us to consider. Jeremiah was describing his own experience with the people called to be the people of God; in the hands of his people, countrymen, colleagues, and close friends, he was prophesying about the Son of Man at the same time. “I hear so many disparaging me, ‘“Terror from every side! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All those who used to be my friends watched for my downfall, ‘Perhaps he will be seduced into error. Then we will master him and take our revenge!’’ The life of Jeremiah the prophet was so similar to the life of the Son of Man that the Lord was easily mistaken to be Jeremiah returned to life. When our Lord asked the disciples what the people thought about him, Jeremiah was one of the prophets mentioned. His ascetic life and consecration to his prophetic mission are well known in Israel; when John the Baptist appeared on the scene proclaiming repentance, the people asked if he was Jeremiah or Elijah. But his prophecy was about the Son of Man, in whose fate every just person shares through personal struggle and battles against forces of sin and evil present in the world.

Based on this, we have considered the paschal mysteries familiar to every Christian and strange, for they are mysteries. They are strange because they result from the covert workings of the dark crevices of human hearts unilluminated by the light of God’s word. The paschal mysteries belong to the Lamb because the incarnation of the Eternal Word completely illuminated every nook and cranny of our human hearts. In Him and united with him, we master the forces of evil that enslave us in our nature; through the incarnation of the Word, we retake our nature he redeemed by his precious blood. Thus, Jeremiah testifies: “But the Lord is at my side, a mighty hero; my opponents will stumble, mastered, confounded by their failure; everlasting, unforgettable disgrace will be theirs. But you, O Lord of Hosts, you who probe with justice, who scrutinise the loins and heart, let me see the vengeance you will take on them, for I have committed my cause to you.” Without this entrustment of the cause of our human life to the Word who became flesh, we can never hope for victory against these forces of evil, who fight us with ourselves. Hence, our paschal mysteries entail dying to ourselves in imitation of the Son of Man. He presented himself as the Lamb for the sacrifice that takes away our sins.

The question our Lord asked the Jews who picked up stones to kill him brought their deep evil inclination to their awareness. “I have done many good works for you to see, works from my Father; for which of these are you stoning me?” We should let this question resound in our ears when tempted to harm another, speak ill of our neighbours, or omit to do a good thing to them. The question will reveal our lack of faith in the word of God as it did to the Jews. “We are not stoning you for doing a good work but for blasphemy: you are only a man and you claim to be God.” We contribute to the paschal mysteries of one another by failing to believe in the presence of the Word of God among us always. By his assumption of our nature, Jesus Christ is present in every person we meet daily. We imprison him through our lack of faith and courage to express him in our words and lives. The Son of Man is present in each of us as the Father is present in his Son through shared nature. “If I am not doing my Father’s work, there is no need to believe me; but if I am doing it, then even if you refuse to believe in me, at least believe in the work I do; then you will know for sure that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Because he is in us, we participate in his paschal mysteries. We also participate in his victory as God is present in us. We, therefore, rejoice with the Psalmist: “I love you, Lord, my strength, my rock, my fortress, my saviour. My God is the rock where I take refuge; my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold. The Lord is worthy of all praise, when I call I am saved from my foes.”

Let us pray: O God, who in this season give your Church the grace to imitate devoutly the Blessed Virgin Mary in contemplating the Passion of Christ, grant, we pray, through her intercession, that we may cling more firmly each day to your Only Begotten Son and come at last to the fullness of his grace. Who lives with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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