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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Palm – Passion Sunday ...


Everything is upside down …

What a strange liturgy we have today. Almost as if the church cannot decide what to do! So, we just squeeze together everything from Jesus entering Jerusalem with the crowds shouting "Hosanna" through the crucified Christ being laid in a borrowed tomb.

Even the name for this Sunday is "Palm - slash - Passion Sunday." It's neither "Palm Sunday" nor "Passion Sunday." It's not "Palm and Passion Sunday." Its "Palm - slash - Passion Sunday," two different events jammed up against one another.

We begin Holy Week by focusing in on the Passion of the Lord, this year according to St. Matthew. On Thursday we will relate the Passion to Sacramental celebration of the gift of the Lord in the Eucharist, on Friday we will zero in on the suffering and death of the Lord, then on Easter we will celebrate the triumph of Eternal Life over Physical Death.

He suffered for us. And what does he ask in return? He asks that we love his Father. He asks that we believe in Him. He asks that we love each other. He asks that we fight for his Kingdom. He asks that live as moral, decent people. He asks little, this Tremendous Lover who has given so much.

The reading from the Gospel in this first part recalls the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem as King.  He gets a rapturous reception from the crowd who acclaim him with words we still use in the "Holy, holy, holy...": “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”.  This scene is important for, in a few days' time, the same triumphant Jesus will be reduced to a battered wreck of humanity, calling forth the words of Pilate: "Look, it is a human being!" (Ecce homo). The same crowd, who on Sunday was acclaiming Him king, will, on Friday, scream violently: “Crucify him!!!”

Hosanna and … crucify HIM!!! - The crying out of these words, we hear side by side in today's liturgy of the word. In fact, less than a week, precisely five days separates them. On Sunday Jesus is called by the crowds a King and on Friday - probably the same crowds - call for His death. Often it is the same in our lives; after days of glory will suddenly come, days of disaster and mortification, days of difficulty and fear.

Do not forget that, after Palm Sunday with its "Hosanna" comes Good Friday with the cry "Crucify Him".

This is our way of the cross; this is our way to salvation. Jesus didn't promise us a luxurious, easy and stress-free life. He said: "If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me."

We must not forget that the symbol of our religion is not the shamrock or horseshoe but the cross scandal for the Jews and stupidity for the pagans.

But we must not forget also that after Good Friday comes Sunday of the Resurrection, with its truth: "I am the Resurrection and the Life, who believes in me, even if he dies will live with me".

Entering the Holy Week of the Passion of Christ let us think about our participation and sharing in His Passion… because without our involvement … the whole Passion of Christ will be useless and ineffective.

Although efforts are now made to make the listening of the Passion less of an endurance test, there really is too much to be fully digested as we stand listening to one or three readers. Perhaps we should set aside a short period later in the day to go through the dramatic telling once more. Or perhaps, even better, we could focus on a particular passage which speaks to us more at this time.
And so we have:
- the last meal of Jesus with his disciples, a bitter-sweet experience for all,
- Jesus' struggle with fear (even terror) and loneliness in the garden, ending in a sense of peace and acceptance,
- Peter's denial of ever having known Jesus, the same Jesus with whom he had just eaten and who had invited him into the garden,
- the kiss of Judas, another disciple, sealing the fate of Jesus, and leading to bitter remorse and suicide,
- the rigged trial before the religious leaders and again before the contemptuous, cynical Pilate, the brief appearance before the superstitious and fearful Herod
This is followed by the implementation of the judgment:
- the torture, humiliation and degradation of Jesus,
- the way of Calvary - the weeping women, the reluctant Simon of Cyrene,
- the crowds, so supportive on Sunday, who now laugh and mock,
- the murderous gangster promised eternal happiness that very day,
- the last words of forgiveness and total surrender (emptying) to the Father. "Father, into your hands I surrender my spirit" - and in so surrendering it, he passed on that Spirit to us.

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From Gloria to Crucify Him

Jesus' life can be summarized in few very meaningful words:

First we have Gloria at His birth
Than we have "this is my beloved Son" at His baptism and transfiguration,

Next we have "Hosanna" in today's first Gospel

And "crucify Him" in today's second Gospel.

But we have not to forget that the last word summarizing His life the "ALLELUIA" on the Easter Sunday.

In our life we did have our Gloria, we did have our "this is my beloved child", we do certainly have our Hosanna and crucify him, but we cannot forget that the end of our life is Alleluia at the day of our resurrection.
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When Jesus dies on the Cross, a pagan, a Roman centurion makes the announcement: "Surely this is the Son of God." To understand who Jesus is, we have to stand under the Cross.  To recognize how much God loves us, we have to realize the extent of his suffering for us.  To realize that we are his followers, we have to join Him on the Cross. Love gives joy, but this joy can result in pain. Love means giving, but this gift can result in suffering as we say no to our own desires for the sake of the one whom we love. Love gives life. The Lord loves us so much that we receive His life.  As we begin this Holy Week we pray that we might have the courage to follow Christ in embracing our own crosses.  May we make real the cross of Christ in the world by giving ourselves to others in love, not sentimental and emotional but in real "love in the truth", as Pope Benedict XVI writes in his encyclical letter "Cartatis in Veritate".

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Climax of the Mission of Christ

This week sees the climax of the mission of Jesus Christ in which the deepest meaning of his life is unfolded and in which his teaching becomes incarnated in his own words and actions.

Today's celebration is divided into two distinct parts: the procession with palms and the Mass proper.
In the first part the prevailing atmosphere is one of joy and the vestments in today's liturgy are a triumphal red and not the violet which has prevailed during the other days of Lent.

The reading from the Gospel in this first part recalls the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem as King.  He gets a rapturous reception from the crowd who acclaim him with words we still use in the "Holy, holy, holy...": “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”.  This scene is important for, in a few days' time, the same triumphant Jesus will be reduced to a battered wreck of humanity, calling forth the words of Pilate: "Look, it is a human being!" (Ecce homo). The same crowd, who on Sunday was acclaiming Him king, will, on Friday, scream violently: “Crucify him!!!”

Although efforts are now made to make the listening of the Passion less of an endurance test, there really is too much to be fully digested as we stand listening to one or three readers. Perhaps we should set aside a short period later in the day to go through the dramatic narration once more.  Or perhaps, even better, we could focus on a particular passage which speaks to us more at this time.

And so we have:
- the last meal of Jesus with his disciples, a bitter-sweet experience for all,
- Jesus' struggle with fear (even terror) and loneliness in the garden, ending in a sense of peace and acceptance,
- Peter's denial of ever having known Jesus, the same Jesus with whom he had just eaten and who had invited him into the garden,
- the kiss of Judas, another disciple, sealing the fate of Jesus, and leading to bitter remorse and suicide,
- the rigged trial before the religious leaders and again before the contemptuous, cynical Pilate, the brief appearance before the superstitious and fearful Herod
This is followed by the implementation of the judgment:
- the torture, humiliation and degradation of Jesus,
- the way of Calvary - the weeping women, the reluctant Simon of Cyrene,
- the crowds, so supportive on Sunday, who now laugh and mock,
- the murderous gangster promised eternal happiness that very day,
- the last words of forgiveness and total surrender (emptying) to the Father. "Father, into your hands I surrender my spirit" - and in so surrendering it, he passed on that Spirit to us.

The drama is truly overpowering and needs really to be absorbed, one incident at a time.
It would be worth reflecting in which of these scenes I can see myself, with which characters I can identify as reacting in the way I probably would.

Through it all there is Jesus, the young 33 years old man (God-Man) who changed the history of the whole Universe. So, as we go through this day and this week, let us look very carefully at Jesus our Savior. We watch, not just to admire, but also to learn. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to walk on the moon. The American President of that time said:  “This was the most important event of the whole history of humanity”. I don’t think so. I think that by entering into this Holy Week we are participating in the most important events of the whole history of humanity.

And we should learn … a lot.

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