Jeremiah, Jesus and Patrick

Jeremiah and Jesus are both the victims of plots against their lives. We also remember St. Patrick today who also faced daily threats of murder, fraud and captivity.

Jeremiah was called by God to prophesy to a dying nation. He was only a teenager when he was called. We know that the elders of his nation refused to listen and plotted to take his life on several occasions. 

In today’s Gospel we hear how the people of Jerusalem reacted to Jesus. Some thought he was the prophet of whom Moses had written. Others thought him to be the Messiah. Still others simple refused to believe in him because of ignorance about his birth.

As a missionary, Patrick came to a non-Christian nation and preached the Gospel. He frequently fell into disrepute because of the Gospel message.

Neither Jeremiah nor Patrick, and certainly not Jesus shirked from the vocation they had received from God. Perhaps this is the lesson we are to take away from the Scriptures today. From the earliest days of our covenant with God – through the ministry of Jesus, the witness of Patrick and up to and including our own modern-day prophets – God has blessed us with faithful and generous hearts who witness has yielded a bountiful harvest through their perseverance.

As they did, so we must do. Jesus gives us his very self as food to strengthen us in our resolve to follow him and to preach his Gospel through the example of our lives.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator