Stones are in the air today. Jeremiah hears them in whispers; “Terror on every side…denounce!”; and Jesus faces them clenched in hands. In between, the psalmist refuses the frenzy and reaches for different rock: “I love you, O Lord, my strength…my rock, my fortress.” On this Friday before Holy Week, the readings let us feel the pressure of hostility and the steadiness of God, and they quietly ask what we are holding; stones for throwing, or a Rock for standing.

When denunciation becomes a habit

“I hear the whisperings of many: ‘Terror on every side! Denounce! let us denounce him!’” (Jer 20:10). Jeremiah’s lament is painfully current. The watch for a misstep is a familiar atmosphere; in offices where an error becomes ammunition, in comment threads where one sentence is screenshotted for sport, in friend groups drifting toward suspicion. The prophet names that pressure as something that closes in from “every side.”

Jeremiah does not pretend it away. He brings his fear and anger in full color before God: “O Lord of hosts, you who test the just…let me witness the vengeance you take on them.” The prayer is not a polished press release; it is a human heart refusing to handle rage alone. That refusal is decisive. He entrusts his cause, which keeps him from weaponizing pain into payback. In biblical prayer, even the desire for vengeance is not a plan; it is material for surrender.

Christ will carry Jeremiah’s realism to completion. He too hears the whisperings and feels the stones. He too entrusts his cause; so radically that he hands it to the Father through mercy. The cross will not erase the moral weight of injustice; it will reveal a divine way of answering it without mirroring its violence. For those living under misrepresentation, the path is not denial but entrustment that resists retaliation and keeps seeking justice by God’s means.

The Rock in a world of rocks

The responsorial psalm re-teaches the reflex of the heart: “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice” (Ps 18). People around Jesus grab rocks to harm. The psalmist grabs hold of “my rock…my deliverer” to endure. That choice changes the physics of a day. Instead of letting adrenaline choose our words, we hand our words to God and then speak them back, tempered.

There is also a promise that steadies courage: “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.” For Christians, God’s temple is not far. Christ’s pierced side has become the open sanctuary; the Church’s liturgy and one’s baptized heart are now places where distress is heard. A simple practice: when the breakers surge; an accusation, a deadline, an argument; borrow the psalm’s sentence and breathe it slowly. It does not make the waves disappear, but it puts your feet on rock.

“Believe the works”: how Jesus invites honest faith

In the Gospel, the charge is clear: “You, a man, are making yourself God” (Jn 10:33). Jesus does not dodge the question of his identity. He goes straight to two deep wells of credibility: Scripture and works.

First, he reads Scripture with brisk clarity: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods’?” (a line from Psalm 82 addressing Israel’s judges). If those who received God’s word could be called “gods” in a participatory sense, how much more can the One “whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world” speak as Son without blasphemy? He is not playing word games. He is insisting that Scripture, which “cannot be set aside,” already points toward a real participation in God’s life; one that finds its source and shape in him.

Then he makes a disarming offer: “If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them…believe the works” (Jn 10:37–38). He invites even his opponents to let the deeds loosen their certainties. Works of mercy, truth, healing, authority over death; these are not ornaments but disclosures of the mutual indwelling he names: “the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” The recognition of Christ often begins here, in honest attention to what he does.

Our moment is thirsty for this test. Claims are many; trust is thin. The Church is not exempt. Scandal is real. Yet sanctity is also stubbornly real; quiet fidelity in marriage, tireless care for the poor, missionaries who serve without cameras, forgiveness offered when it costs. Let the works speak. When they bear the flavor of the Beatitudes and the cross, they are not PR; they are evidence of Someone at work.

Consecrated and sent

Jesus names himself as “the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent.” In him this consecration is unique; he is Son by nature, not by adoption. Yet by baptism we are truly anointed and entrusted with a share in his mission. The early Church did not hesitate to use strong language for this participation: through grace we “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). Psalm 82’s startling “you are gods” is not license for self-deification; it is a summons to exercise Godlike justice and mercy because God has drawn near and shared his life.

There is a gentle accountability here. Jesus says of himself, “If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me.” In a secondary, humbler key, it is fitting for Christians and for ecclesial institutions to adopt a similar transparency: judge our claims by our works. Do we protect the vulnerable, tell the truth, keep faith with the poor, love enemies? Holiness does not abolish critique; it renders it fruitful.

Across the Jordan: returning to the beginning

After the attempted arrest, Jesus “went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained” (Jn 10:40). He steps back to the river where his mission was publicly named by the Father. This is not retreat-as-escape; it is retreat-as-remembering. Before the final confrontation, he returns to the place of first love.

Lent asks for the same move. Go back across your own Jordan. Remember where the Lord’s call first cut through the noise; an encounter, a confession, a Scripture that burned, a work of mercy that felt like home. Remaining there, even briefly, clears space for Holy Week to be more than a calendar. It becomes recognition.

Practicing Lenten discernment today

Hope that does not harden

“Many there began to believe in him.” Not everyone, not all at once; but many. Sometimes faith grows best not in the center of the argument but in the place where testimony and works quietly converge. As Holy Week approaches, the choice is less about winning the standoff and more about standing on the Rock. Christ’s words are Spirit and life, and his works are still unfolding. May we be found on his side of the stones.