These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.

Some time after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: Go tell Hananiah this:   Thus says the LORD: By breaking a wooden yoke, you forge an iron yoke! (Jer 28:12-13)

Dueling prophets in the house of the Lord . . . folks must have been a little bit confused. But seeing Jeremiah wearing a wooden yoke around his neck must have must have provoked howls of laughter, especially when the prophet Hananiah removed it from Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. But a wooden yoke will soon be replaced by an iron yoke, says the Lord, and no one is laughing anymore.