Tuesday in Holy Week

A reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah: 

In those days Jeremiah said: You O Lord, has shown me, and I have known: then You showed me their doings. And I was as a meek lamb, that is carried to be a victim: and I knew not that they had devised plots against me, saying: Let us put wood on his bread, and cut him off from the land of the living, and let his name be remembered no more. But you, O Lord of hosts, who judges justly, and tries the reins and hearts, let me see your revenge on them: for you I have revealed my cause, O Lord our God.

Reflection:

 

Again, we have the plaintive words of Jeremias: he gives us the very words used by his enemies, when they conspired his death. It is evident, however, that the Prophet is here a figure of one greater than himself. Let us, say these enemies, put wood upon his bread: that is, let us put poisonous wood into what he eats, so that we may cause his death. This is the literal sense of these words, as applied to the Prophet; but how much more truly were they fulfilled in our Redeemer! He tells us that his Divine Flesh is the True Bread that came down from heaven. This Bread, this Body of the Man-God, is bruised, torn, and wounded; the Jews nail it to the Wood; so that it is, in a manner, made one with the Wood, and the Wood is all covered with Jesus’ Blood. This Lamb of God was on the Wood I of the Cross: it is by his immolation that we have had given to us a Sacrifice which is worthy of God; and it is by this Sacrifice that we participate in the Bread of Heaven, the Flesh of the Lamb, our true Passover.

 

Let us pray,

 

May thy mercy, O God, cleanse us from all traces of our old nature, and enable us to be formed anew unto holiness. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end.

Amen.