Let His Name Be Remembered No More
Saturday, April 5th Readings Reflection: Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
We find ourselves today on the eve of Passiontide, the last two weeks of Lent and perhaps the most dramatic weeks in the entire liturgical year. Today’s Epistle, from the Prophet Jeremias, sets the stage as we prepare to enter into Christ’s Passion: “And I was a meek lamb, that is carried to be a victim: and I knew not that they had devised counsels 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” (Jer 11:19 DRB).
In the literal sense, Jeremias himself experienced the very sufferings he described, for his own people turned against him and ultimately stoned him to death for his prophecies. However, we Catholics understand this passage as an allegory for Christ’s sufferings in HIs passion. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary on this passage from Jeremias, demonstrating how the passage is an allegory for Jesus. In this commentary, Aquinas first pointed out that Jeremias’ words about not knowing the plans against himself do not denote a lack in Jesus’ divine knowledge; rather, they refer to His human knowledge, which gained understanding of events in the normal human way, through experience and learning. Thus as God, Jesus knew the evil plans to kill Him, but as man, He had not heard them with his own ears.
Writing about the mention of wood in Jeremias’ prophecy, Aquinas wrote that this refers to the Cross by which Christ’s enemies tried to “cut [H]im off from the land of the living” (Jer 11:19). Jeremias’ phrase “wood on his bread” refers to how Christ’s enemies—both those who condemned Him to death and even those for centuries after His death—tried to “stir up scandal at [H]is doctrine” through the Cross. Ever since Christ was crucified, people have tried to use the Cross as a means of leading the faithful astray. They point to the Cross as a symbol of shame and a source of fear: surely believers do not want to share their Leader’s ignominious fate. Why would any rational person want to follow a group whose Leader was put to death without even a fight?
History shows that the enemies’ plans has yet to succeed. Jesus’ name has not been “cut off from the land of the living and…remembered no more”; instead, the Church He founded is the longest-existing institution on earth, with thousands of converts each year. Jeremias hinted at this victory in the last verse in today’s Epistle: “But [T]hou, O Lord of Saboath [that is, of hosts], [W]ho judgest justly, and triest the reins and hearts, let me see [T]hy revenge on them: for to [T]hee I have revealed my cause.”
Jeremias acknowledges that only through God will he be vindicated; likewise, Jesus Himself was vindicated through divine power, which He Himself possesses. When His Apostles abandoned Him and He felt abandoned by even God Himself, Jesus never turned to any other source for victory. During His Passion, He knew that victory was His. From the Cross, He forgave His enemies, and with His last breath, He commended His spirit to the Father, the Source of life.
For a time, all seemed lost, and evil appeared to have won; the grief of Good Friday and the stillness of Holy Saturday immerse us in this moment. However, through this all comes the glory and the victory of the Resurrection—yet even this Christ’s enemies have tried to use as a scandal to lure away believers from the truth. May our faith always remain strong so that their plans never fail, and in these last weeks of Lent, may we hope in the victory of the Resurrection even in the shadow of the Cross.
Beautiful!