Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent 2023
Jesus answered them,
"Is it not written in your law, 'I said, 'You are gods"'?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?
If I do not perform my Father's works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
- John 10:34-38
In these final days before Holy Week begins, the tone of the Readings of the liturgy have taken on a darker and more urgent tone. There is no denying that we are moving towards something imminent and that the division between Jesus and those who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—accept his message and mission are leading us to a point of no return.
First, the Reading from the Prophet Jeremiah proclaimed today places before us the thoughts and motives of those who want to silence God’s prophet:
“"Terror on every side!
Denounce! let us denounce him!…
"Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail,
and take our vengeance on him." (20:10)
But Jeremiah isn’t silenced and does not abandon his mission, because he is confident of God’s presence and power:
But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph…
Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD,
For he has rescued the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked! (20:11a, 13)
We see this same dynamic at work as Jesus confronts the critics who are prepared to stone him to death in order to silence him. Rather than flee and save himself, he stands firm in his proclamation of the Reign of God and commitment to make the Father known. Jesus knows who he is and that the Father is always with him (cf. John 8:29). Those who wanted to silence could also understand this, if they would only consider the revelation that was at the heart the signs that he had performed: God’s power is working in and through him, manifesting the presence of the Kingdom here and now.
Although the liturgy in these days is ultimately preparing us for Holy Week and the celebration of the Paschal Triduum, they also offer us insight into reality of affliction and suffering that wound us. In A Turning to God, Cardinal Basil Hume, a Benedictine monk and spiritual writer, identified five particular experiences of suffering that have the power to wound us deeply: violence, hunger, oppression and persecution, poverty, and sickness. He reflected:
The world suffers, indeed, men, women, and children. But these people, and I mean all those sorely tried by the blows that inflected these wounds, share and go on sharing in our Lord’s Passion, as we ourselves do from time to time.
I believe that these persons, victims of the five afflictions… can and often do learn through the experience of the Passion of our Lord the real secret of his resurrection—an inner peace, an inner freedom and joy. I have seen the triumph of Christ in the faces of victims of man’s folly.
For us, as people of faith, the light of the resurrection shines forth, even in the experience of suffering. If we are able—like Jeremiah and Jesus—to recognize the abiding and grace-giving presence of the Father in every aspect of life, then we will be able to recognize the light of Easter shining beyond and through the suffering we endure. As we will see, this assurance of the Father’s abiding presence carried Jesus through those final days.
As we look toward Holy Week, set aside some time to reflect on past experiences that have left you wounded. How, as you look back on those difficult times, can you now recognize God’s “fingerprints,” signs of God’s presence and action even in those dark times?
Allow those memories to shape your awareness of how God is present and active in your life now.
Pardon the offenses of your peoples, we pray, O Lord,
and in your goodness set us free
from the bonds of the sins
we have committed in our weakness.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent (Option 1)
