“Yet I was like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, not knowing that they were hatching plots against me: “Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered.” (Jeremiah 11:19)
Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:
“In Jeremiah, too, he likens himself to a lamb, as thus: “I was as a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter.” These and other similar sayings he applies to himself.
If we examine the declaration about Jesus who is pointed out by John in the words, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” from the standpoint of the dispensation itself of the bodily sojourn of the Son of God in the life of people, we will assume that the lamb is none other than his humanity. For he was “led as a sheep to the slaughter and was dumb as a lamb before its shearer,” saying, “I was as an innocent lamb being led to be sacrificed. (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 6)
Collect
By your help, we beseech you, Lord our God,
may we walk eagerly in that same charity
with which, out of love for the world,
your Son handed himself over to death.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
may we walk eagerly in that same charity
with which, out of love for the world,
your Son handed himself over to death.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
