6 April 2019
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Jeremiah “like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against [him]” (Jer 11:19). We Christians recognize in these words of Jeremiah an image of the Christ to come, for Jesus, too, was led to slaughter like a trusting lamb. As much as we Christians strive to live in peace and communion with our neighbors, if we follow Christ to the end in his mission of reconciling all things with the Father, there will likely come a point in which we will find that people are hatching plots against us, not because we have failed as reconcilers, but precisely because we have been faithful to our mission.
Jesus never ceases to love those who persecute him. For us to do the same requires a miracle, a sharing in God’s divine life. This is not something that we can do on our own, but it is a true grace that God can offer us, if we truly and insistently desire it through our cooperation with grace. To this end, we can ask ourselves to what extent not only created things, but even knowledge itself, can help us to grow in this life of love. As we considered in our reflection on Sunday, created things exist to help us to share in the divine life that God offers us; if they become an obstacle to us, then it is because we do not understand how to be in proper relation to them. The same thing is true of knowledge. The knowledge of gossip rarely, if ever, contributes to the service of love and is best avoided. Jeremiah can be faithful in letting himself be led to the difficult places that God calls him to go (as a prefiguration of Christ) precisely because he does not know the plots that are being hatched against him.
In today’s Gospel (Jn 7:40-53), we see that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, because where it is incomplete, it can lead us to erroneous conclusions that can close us off to Christ. Sometimes the question ought to be not whether some fact is right or wrong in itself, but whether knowing it contributes to the life of love that God offers us. If it does not, it may be at the service only of vain curiosity, and it might be better to set aside that knowledge that “puffs up” in order to receive the greater thing that God wishes to do in our lives and thereby learn to love more freely. Let us ask the Lord to work this miracle in our lives, so that in all our knowing and unknowing we may love and serve God and our neighbor.