Since tomorrow the Church is celebrating the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of Mary, followed by Passion (Palm) Sunday and Holy Week, today's readings are the last daily Lenten readings for 2008.

Both readings, as well as the Psalm, capture the feelings, prayer, and words of two great prophets denounced, trapped, and hounded to death by their enemies. What might surprise us, especially in the case of Jeremiah, is the confidence both he and Jesus have in the face of persecution. Jeremiah avers: "But the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion," and Jesus affirms his Divine identity: "Believe the words, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father."

The confidence of these two prophets, we know as we are reading, did not save them from death ("The breakers of death surged round about me ... the snares of death overtook me"), but we also know that death did not destroy their message or their person. And, in fact, Jesus would overcome the enemy precisely by dying! We are on the verge of celebrating the Mystery (we might even say the Alchemy) of the Cross. So today we pray especially in preparation for Holy week and the Triduum, the celebration of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

To specify our prayer and to offer you a particular vantage point for praying these Scriptures, I would like to ask you to notice carefully what seems like only a detail in Jesus' conversation with his adversaries. It's clear they are accusing him of and about to stone him for blasphemy, that is, for making Himself into God. Jesus does not counter this by saying, simply, "I am the Son of God." (Remember, he never said this of himself; his preferred self-designation was "the Son of Man"). Rather he points to something already in the Jewish Law; we are all gods (or, at least, sons and daughters of God). Above all, the message of Jesus all through his life was that we are divine in our origin and our destiny, and Salvation for us is Restoration, the recovery of our divinity.We, too, can perform miracles, good works, the works of God. And we are called to just that! So, I invite you to share with me in this prayer, reflecting upon these awesome promises: "If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came (Jesus' words)", then we too, if we only believe, already possess the eternal life of God! Looking back on our Lenten journeys, then, we can ask, "What is still preventing me from living fully the divine life, the new life in Christ?"

"Your words, Lord Jesus, are Spirit and life; you have the words of everlasting life!" And so do we!