Feast of the Prophet Jeremiah – July 21


Jeremiah is one of the greatest of Israel's prophets. He suffered much because of his faithfulness to God during a period of sin and refusal of God's Word. The Catholic Church remembers him on July 21 each year.


Jeremiah was born to a family of priests in Anatot, north of Jerusalem. He served as a prophet in the period before the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple. Scripture notes that he began his period as a prophet at the time of Josiah, the righteous king, who reformed the kingdom in 622 B.C. and who was killed in the battle with the Egyptians at Har Megiddo in 609. Jeremiah suffered during the reigns of his sons, kings Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, who did not walk in the way of their father and did not listen to the Word of God.


The Book of Jeremiah, which carries the prophet's sayings, is full of his sufferings. He was persecuted, jailed and even kidnapped to Egypt towards the end of his life. Christian tradition remembers him as the suffering prophet. According to tradition, Jeremiah also wrote the Book of Lamentations, which constitutes a cry of pain at the destruction of Jerusalem.


However, Jeremiah also reminded his readers of God's fidelity to his people. In one of the most well known passages of the Book of Jeremiah, the prophet cites the words of God: "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-- a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. " (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

 

 

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