Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
March 31, 2023
Daily Reading from the USCCB: Jeremiah 20:10-13
Jeremiah’s people find his message unacceptable. They would like eliminate him. Most of God’s prophets have had to undergo unpopularity and persecution. Yet like Jeremiah, they all have faith in God. They are confident that their persecutors will not triumph.
The prophets are persecuted because they represent the justice of God. Their hearers are the offspring of Adam and Eve who had set out to assume for themselves the prerogatives of God. Those who express the will of God and God’s righteousness are necessarily out of tune with the seed of Adam.
This hostility leads Adam’s offspring to try to destroy the representatives of God. To the extent that we do not reject our own sinfulness, we are all allies of the power of wickedness.
