Friday of 5th Week of Lent: reflection
Theme: YOUR PERSECUTORS WILL NOT OVERCOME YOU
Readings: Jer 20:10–13, Jn 10:31–42
As we draw closer to the Holy Week, the week of the passion of Christ, the daily gospel readings help us to feel the closeness of Christ’s passion by giving us scenes of intense attacks against Jesus and the attempts of the authorities to arrest and kill him. The first readings are also doing the same task by providing us stories of the persecution of the just and how God delivered them. These are to prepare our minds to see the victory of Christ on the cross as we head into the Holy Week.
In today’s first reading, the prophet Jeremiah fills us with the assurance that God will fight for us when we are persecuted for doing what is right; that God will foil the attacks of the enemy against us and cause the plotters of evil against us to stumble. Therefore, he challenges us to firmly cling to God in the face of persecutions, for God will fight our battle for us. He challenges us to commit our course to God with faith and allow Him to do the battle for us.
Are you surrounded by people who are plotting evil against you or waiting for your downfall as it happened to Jeremiah? Are your trusted friends, colleagues and relatives even complicit in the whole evil plots against you as it happened to Jeremiah? Are those around you just waiting for you to slip so that they will attack and destroy you? Today, Jeremiah is assuring you that God is with you as a strong and mighty warrior, therefore, your persecutors will stumble, they will fail, they will not overcome you (Jer 20:11). Just commit your life and your course to Him with faith.
May you be victorious in all the challenges of this Friday. Amen