I invite you to consider that there is a stranger in your life that is the presence of the Risen Lord.

 

Third Sunday of Easter  A  2023

 

In today’s gospel we have the story of two disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus.  During their walk with the Lord, their eyes were closed from recognizing Him.  But later that day, when Jesus was at table with them, he took bread, blessed, broke it, and gave the bread to them.  At that moment their eyes of the disciples were opened, and they recognized Jesus just before he vanished from their sight.

 

The Easter story and the story of the Emmaus journey hover around us all the time.  It tells us that God never forces himself on us.  To repeat God never forces himself on us but joins us in a walk in the garden or visit of a friend or while sorrowing at the death of a friend or watching the beautiful scenery or reading a consoling letter from someone we love.  God speaks to us in the voices of those who are hurt or are sorrowful, the faces of the poor and the needy, in the victims of prejudice and the generosity of those who care, in an ordinary meal and especially in the Eucharist. Again, God speaks to us in the stranger and in the voices of those who are hurt or are sorrowful.

 

A story:  There once was a little boy who wanted to meet God.  So he packed some biscuits and some soft drink and started his journey.  When he had gone three blocks, he met an old woman sitting in the park just staring at some pigeons.  The boy sat down next to her.  He was about to eat, and he noticed the old lady looked hungry.  So, he offered her a biscuit.  She gratefully accepted it and gave him a beautiful smile.  He offered her a soft drink, and again she smiled at him.

 

They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word.  As it grew dark, the boy got up to leave but before he had taken a few steps, he turned and ran back to the old woman and gave her a hug.  She gave him her biggest smile ever.  When the boy reached home a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face.  She asked him what made him so happy.  He replied, “I had lunch with God.”  But, before she could respond, he added, “You know what?  She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!”

 

Meanwhile, the old woman also returned to her home.  Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face, and he asked, why she was so happy?  She replied, “I had lunch in the park with God.”  But before her son responded, she added: “You know, he’s much younger than I expected.”

 

Our God is a God of surprises, and our God is present to us when we welcome the stranger.

 

The Emmaus account is a recognition story, so to speak.  It depicts how the two disciples came to recognize the presence of the Risen Christ in their midst.  There were two key elements in the development of an Easter faith: hospitality to the stranger and the Eucharistic breaking of the Bread.  Insofar as we welcome the stranger in our midst and insofar as we live Eucharistic centered lives, we indeed will be Easter people who discover the many ways the Risen Lord is present to us in the stuff of life.

 

 

For the original disciples, the Risen Lord was present in their midst, and they did not recognize him.  From the Gospel account of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, the key to finding Christ is to know where to look.  The two disciples had all the facts but none of the meaning. 

 

How about us?  Do we too have trouble recognizing the presence of the Risen Christ in our midst?  The message of this Biblical account is that hospitality shown to the stranger is a way of recognizing the presence of the Risen Lord.  I would invite you to consider that there is a stranger in your life that is the presence of the Risen Jesus.  Perhaps this stranger is asking us questions we would rather not hear.

 

Yes, we all have expected ways of recognizing God’s presence in our midst.  Jesus continues to make his presence known but often in ways we least expect.  May we not close down to the unexpected ways we encounter the presence of the Risen Lord in our midst.   

 

None of us has full control over the course of our lives.  The Lord comes to us as an unrecognized stranger.  The stranger in your midst may be a person or it may be a situation you would rather not have to face.  It can be a work situation, an illness, depression, or whatever cross you are facing in your life.

 

 

Back to the

Gospel account, the two disciples, in the midst of their discouragement and disappointment, said to the stranger:  “We had hoped that he would be the one to redeem Israel.”  The disciples were confessing their profound discouragement.  Their hopes were dashed when their leader was crucified.

 

How do we identify with those two disciples in which we too had hoped, and those dreams are shattered:

 

n  We had hoped our children will live out their faith in the same way we do.

n  We had hoped that our Church and government leaders would not disillusion us with how they live their lives.

n  We had hoped that violence and conflict would not continue to characterize our lives.

n  We had hoped all parishioners would be active stakeholders in the life of the parish.

n  We had hoped that Rochester would have more sunshine.

 

The original disciples did not understand the meaning of the suffering and death of Jesus.  They thought they were defeated.  They did not understand that death was not a defeat.  Rather, death was the way to us to share more fully in the Risen Life of Jesus.

 

Like the original disciples we too have difficulty in understanding the meaning of suffering, setback, and death in our lives.  It can seem like our dreams are shattered. 

 

 

I invite you to consider that there is a stranger in your life that is the presence of the Risen Lord.  Recognition does not come easily.  We gather in this Breaking of the Bread so that our eyes will be opened.  We gather in this Breaking of the Bread so that we can embrace unexpected strangers in our life -- whether it be a person or whether it be a situation.  The Risen Lord is to be found in all of life.  It is in hospitality shown to the stranger and in this Eucharistic Breaking of the Bread that we will know the joy of the Risen Lord in our midst.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give thanks to the Lord for His love is everlasting; His mercy endures forever.

 

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER  A  2023

 

From today’s responsorial psalm:  Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love is everlasting. His mercy endures forever.

In this Easter season, we gather in the mystery of the Eucharist to Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love is everlasting. His mercy endures forever.

St John Paul II declared the Second Sunday of Easter to be Divine Mercy Sunday. First and foremost, Jesus is the face of the Father’s Divine Mercy.  Today is the Day of Mercy -- Divine Mercy.

Last Supper account is the example of God’s divine mercy to us. And Jesus gives us the Sacrament of the Eucharist to continue God’s divine mercy to us.

From today’s Gospel, I invite you to consider the faith journey of the apostle Thomas on this Divine Mercy Sunday. The popular interpretation of Thomas is that he is ‘doubting Thomas’ -- seen in a bit of a negative light. I invite you to revisit this Easter gospel and see Thomas as a model of faith.

Thomas said before he could believe in Jesus’ resurrection, he must see the holes the nails made in his hands, put his finger into the holes and his hand into the great wound made by the centurion’s lance.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, my hunch is that we who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual landscape. There is a side of us that is doubting Thomas and there is a side of us that is believing, Thomas. Each one of us is unique. This is not by accident. It is by God’s design that there is no perfect cookie-cutter approach of the journey of faith for Catholics. We need to dispense with the myth that there is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians.

I suggest Thomas is teaching the important lesson that we must not separate the resurrection from the cross. We are the disciples of the crucified as well as the risen Lord.

We cannot live the life of grace, the risen life, authentically unless we bear in our bodies the wounds of the cross. What does this mean? This means being conscious that we develop the capacity to love and be loved only by dying to ourselves.  It is in the experience of our wrestling with the experiences of our life in which we struggle, in which we experience the cross in our life that will lead us to recognizing our need for the grace and the mercy of God. Our wounds are a constant reminder of our frailty, and that it is God’s grace that raises us up to new life.

Thank you, Thomas, for bringing honesty into our faith, for helping to acknowledge at times that there are areas in our life that Jesus is not yet Lord. Thomas did not pretend that he was better than he was. He began by wanting proof and ended by being glad of faith. He is the patron saint of transitions and steps in faith. Faith is a journey. He is the saint of faith in our times.

His parish community, so to speak, was the place he found faith, having lost it when he tried to go it alone. Then he came back to the community of faith and went on a journey of life that took him to martyrdom in India.

The journey of faith of each one of us is unique. But it is the plan of Jesus that we are better together as a parish community rather than as isolated individuals. This was the experience of the apostle Thomas, and I suggest that in this community may you experience again the merciful love of Jesus in the love we have for each other as a parish community.

We are called to move beyond a covid isolation and return again to community, to our community of faith. The mystery of the Eucharist for which we gather is meant to be experienced in the context of our faith community.

The Bible describes mercy as a gift of God, a gift that is to be given to those who need it. Establishing the abiding faithfulness of God, we the Church of the Holy Spirit are to circulate mercy, to pay it forward irrespective of deservedness, inviting one and all to experience the merciful love of Jesus.

We are to be the mercy of a loving and forgiving God. God wants us to help him bring the mercy and the forgiveness into our world.

We are to be the mercy of a loving and forgiving God. God wants us to help him bring the mercy and the forgiveness into our world.

Jesus is the model leader and spiritual guide. He is pleased to give Thomas the assurance he is looking for, and then challenges him to look forward to the day when he will believe without seeing – always in the Jesus who passes through death to resurrection.

Jesus on this Divine Mercy Sunday is pleased to give you what you are looking for in your journey of faith. Jesus does not want His Body, the Church, to remain in the tomb but always raise her up to new life. Each of us is not to remain in the tomb of our doubts, of our fears, of our anxieties.

Lord, we thank you for friends, leaders and spiritual guides who challenge us as Jesus challenged Thomas. But may we like Thomas know that we need to see the scars and the wounds for us also to believe in resurrection and new life. Thomas professes the true faith of the Church. We too must insist that the Jesus we follow is the true Jesus, the one whose risen body bears the wounds of Calvary.

Lord, forgive us that we want to help those in need without sharing their pain; we look for their resurrection but do not want to see their wounds.

We thank you for people like Thomas who will not let us away with easy solutions.  They insist that we must see the holes nails have made in the hands of victims, and only then believe that they have within themselves the capacity to rise to a new life.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, may live in a state of thanksgiving for God’s redemptive mercy that is shared with each and every one of us. And may the Gospel we proclaim help us to recognize that scars are the pathway to our sharing in the Risen life of Christ. This was the journey of the apostle Thomas. It is the journey for each one of us.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

We are an Easter people, and Alleluia is our song.

 

EASTER  2023

 

Today is the day of Easter joy.   We proclaim the centerpiece of our Catholic Christian faith:  Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead.  Alleluia! Alleluia!  Today we celebrate the reason why we are a people of hope and new life.  Today we cast off fear and make a leap of faith.  Liturgically we light the Easter candle because we believe in the light that comes from the Risen Lord.  This Easter candle needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

May we all be aware of how we encounter the Lord on this Easter day  -- as parents who bring their families to this Easter Eucharist, as Catholics who have participated in the other liturgies of Holy Week on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, as Catholics who may have not been in Church since Christmas day, as Catholics who are very distracted by the busyness of life, as Catholics who have recently experienced the death of one you  love or the pain of some significant brokenness in life, or as pilgrims who seek to come to the Lord more deeply in their lives. 

My hunch is that those of us who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual landscape.  Each one of us is unique.  This is not by accident.  It is by God’s design.  We need to dispense with the myth that there is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians.  May there always be considerable diversity in the ways each one of us encounters our loving God.  We are a big Church.  There is room for everyone.

In every way possible to say it, the Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are forgiven; all are invited to the Easter banquet.  Does this mean that anything goes, that our Church is a Church without rules or discipline?   Of course not.   It does mean that the Lord’s love and Risen Life is to be shared by all.  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.  Yes, we do need to open ourselves to the forgiveness and reconciliation and love the Lord extends to us.  And as sure as the sun rises each day, when our hearts are touched by the love of Jesus, we are motivated to share this love with one and all.  

On this Easter day, I am grateful for all the resurrection moments I experience in the vibrant life of our parish community.

For me, I sense the presence of the Risen Lord when I hear crying in our Church.  This for me does not disturb my prayer, for I think there is no future to the Church if there is no crying.  Crying for me is a sign of family prayer as moms and dads are passing on the gift of faith to their children.  Thank you moms and dads for bringing your children to Church.

Another beautiful resurrection moment in our parish life is when our teens led us in prayer on the evening of Good Friday in the Seven Last Words Service.   For me, every Sunday at the 5:00 pm, our parish teens lift up their voices in the praise of God.  Their youthful faith is expressive of the presence of the Risen Lord in our parish community.  I am grateful for the faith of our parish teens.

I am grateful for all the young families in our parish who bring their children to be baptized, to make their First Communion, First Reconciliation, and then completing their Christian Initiation with the Sacrament of Confirmation.

 

I am grateful for our parish Triduum choir under the leadership of Susan Gividen who have inspired with the beauty of our sacred music.

In our Good Friday liturgy, I was inspired by the faith and hope of all who venerated the cross.  I saw a visually impaired mother who was led to venerate the cross with the assistance of her loving daughter; an elderly woman who approached to venerate the cross with the assistance of her walker; a grandfather holding his grandchild as they both the venerated the cross.  Indeed, these are people with deep faith.

I am grateful for all the wonderful families of our parish.  Recognizing that family life is not always perfect and in fact family is often filled with hicccups, I am  grateful for all the single moms and dads of our faith commmunity;  your presence in our faith community is a resurrection moment for me.   I grateful for the divorced and separated who are a beautiful and most important part of our faith community; I am grateful to those who are straight and for those who are gay.  The Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are forgiven; and all are loved.

 The Gospel is not merely a story in which we are offered the good example of a man who lived a life of love. It is much more, for it shows us that God has renewed the life of each one of us totally from within through the Spirit of the Risen Christ who now lives in us.  The Lord’s Easter proclamation is that I do not decide which lives have value and dignity; God does.

The love of the Risen Lord is meant for you, for the person sitting next to you, and for everyone.  What will it take for you to be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill this world with His love?  What will take for us to believe that God’s love will triumph over poverty, conflict, violence and war.

 

Lord, I pray, that in spite of our sinfulness, we will be signs of hope and love to each other and to the wider community as well.

Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.   May you too be very much in touch with how the spirit of the Risen Lord lives in your family and in our parish family.

We cannot celebrate Easter in one day; we will not come to faith in one Mass.  AS God’s Easter people, we make the journey together over the course of a life time.  Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.  As surely as the dark of night gives way to the dawn, the Lord’s gift of Easter joy awaits you.

Have a blessed day.  Today is our day of Easter joy.

 

 

 

 

Jesus Christ, our King, is Risen,

 

EASTER VIGIL 2023

 

We began this solemn Easter Vigil with the lighting of the Easter Fire in the landscaped area at the front entrance of the Church.  From the Easter fire, we lit the Easter candle, the Christ candle – the light of the Risen Christ that overcomes the darknesses of our lives. 

After lighting the Christ Candle, we enter the Church in darkness.  It is the darkness of the closed up tomb where Jesus’ body lay on Holy Saturday.  The stone has been rolled in front of it.  No light enters.  It is utterly dark.

In our prayer, the darkness of the Church at the beginning of our liturgy speaks  to the daily reality of our lives at times.  This is where many of us live from time to time. Yes, there are times when we live between death and resurrection. It is the valley of grief and unknowing--for us as well as for the first disciples. On Holy Saturday we, and they, don't know what the future will bring. Whether the cancer will be cured, or we will love again, or find a job that fulfills our calling. It can be a  time of dark uncertainty.

Into the darkness of our lives, we proclaim the great Easter mystery that the light of the Risen Christ overcomes the darkness of our lives.  Susan Gividen proclaimed the Easter mystery in the singing of the Exultet.

Rejoice, heavenly powers!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor!

Rejoice, O Mother Church, exult in glory.

Sound the trumpet of salvation.

Jesus Christ, our King, is Risen!

Let this place resound in joy,

Echoing the song of all God’s people!

 

Then in the Liturgy of the Word,  we are swept though the landscape of our salvation history.

 

From the first Scripture reading, the creation account from the Book of Genesis,  "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep..." In the beginning, all was a dark void. And in this empty tomb where Jesus was buried, we find the same reality--it is a dark void.  How many times will we find ourselves in that dark place? A place where any ray of hope is extinguished in the vacuum of fear, of not knowing, of total emptiness.

Darkness is shorthand for anything that scares me--either because I am sure that I do not have the resources to survive it or because I do not want to find out.

But in that place, somehow through the grace of God, we must be patient. We must wait for the wind of the Spirit, the "wind from God that sweeps over the face of the waters" to fan the dim embers of our faith.

"Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.... God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."

You see, both darkness and light are part of the first day. Darkness and light are halves of every day ever since that first day. Darkness and light are essential parts of our lives. And when we find ourselves in that dark lonely place, we must remind ourselves of this truth. There will always ultimately be light in the midst of the darkness.

In the second Scripture reading from the Book of Exodus, as God leads Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt at night, the Israelites cry out to God in fear and uncertainty as they see the massive army of Pharaoh in pursuit behind them, while in front of them is the sea--they are trapped in the darkness of fear and faithlessness. "It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness!" they cry out. But Moses tells them, "Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today.... The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still."

It is so hard to keep still in the fearful dark, isn't it? It is so hard to trust that the wind of God's spirit will, finally, blow on the dim embers of our cooling faith.

Thanks be to God, the angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them."  The divine presence, the angel of God, glowing within the cloud in the darkness, blocks the oncoming threat of the Egyptian army. You see, there will always be light in the midst of darkness. God will show up at night. We have only to keep still.

Darkness is part of every day. But there will be light. What would our lives with God look like if we trusted this rhythm of darkness and light instead of fighting it?

Following this Liturgy of the Word, we will joyfully celebrate the Sacraments of Initiation with our RCIA candidates.  They have been on a spiritual journey all of their lives.  Some time ago, they have heard God’s call and enrolled in the RCIA program.  They have been praying and discerning, and we have been praying for them.

As a faith community, we rejoice with an Easter joy in welcoming our elect fully into the sacramental life of the Church, the mystery of the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.

The final movement of the great Easter Vigil is the Liturgy of the Eucharist. 

We gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  In Eucharist, we are fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord.  We share in the mystery of the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.  As the community of the baptized and as a Eucharistic community, we proclaim that we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

 

As I have done for you, so you also must do.

 

HOLY THURSDAY 2023

 

With this solemn liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, we enter the heart and soul of the entire liturgical year.  We celebrate the paschal mystery – the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.  As the disciples of Jesus, we gather during the Triduum to celebrate the mystery of the ways we encounter the Lord.

In this Holy Thursday liturgy, we encounter the Lord in two significant ways.   The first way is very shocking: the voice of God speaks to us through Jesus with a towel around his waist asking us to find the towel with our name on it: “As I have done for you, so you also must do.”

In today’s Gospel account, Jesus wraps a towel around his waist, takes a pitcher of water and, on the night before he dies, begins washing the feet of his disciples.  The disciples are stunned.  The washing of feet was usually done by a slave.   It was Jesus who was washing their feet.  Jesus is teaching them that this new life is gained not in presiding over multitudes from royal thrones; it is gained, however, in walking with the humble and in humbly serving this world’s walkers.  When he tells his disciples to do as he has done in washing their feet, he is commissioning them to walk as he has walked and to heal as he has healed.

The message of Holy Thursday is that his disciples are to change the world by getting down on their knees and washing the feet of God’s poor.

This is the authentic mark of the follower of Jesus Christ:  that he and she wash the feet of the beggar, the leper, the miserable sinner rejected by everyone else.  The lesson to be drawn from Jesus’ washing of the feet, I do not decide which lives have value and dignity, God does.

Jesus the teacher demonstrated his life-giving message:  foot washing.  He did not ask his friends to die for one another, but to live for one another.  Holy Thursday is a celebration of life, and life together as a people of God.

 

Notice how we encounter the Lord in this liturgy of the Lord’s Supper

Service rooted in love is the example Jesus gives to his disciples.  It is a radical form of service because it is based on a radical form of love.

 

The second way we encounter is in the mystery of the Eucharist.  It was at the Last Supper on the night before he died, that Jesus said over the Bread and Wine:  This is my Body; take and eat.  This is my blood: take and drink.  Do this in memory of me.

When we gather for Sunday Eucharist Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, we are doing what Jesus asked us to do when He said:  Do this in memory of me.

In this sacred Eucharistic meal, under the form of bread and wine, Jesus is present to us.  We are nourished with the bread of life and the cup of salvation.

We encounter the Lord in a most privileged sacramental in the Sacrament of the Eucharist that was instituted at the Last Supper on the night before he died to insure us that Jesus will be present to us all days until the end of time.

On this Holy Thursday, may we ponder over the words of Jesus: “Do this in memory of me.”  Specifically, what is “this” that Jesus wants us to in His memory.

Traditionally, we think of the Eucharist has what Jesus is calling us to do in His memory.  And so, we gather Sunday after Sunday after Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist in obedience to what the Lord as asked us to.

I invite us to expand our sense of what Jesus is asking us to do.  Do this also means to do the meaning of the ritual in real life, to do what Jesus did.  It means to live as Jesus lived.  We are to remember not only what Jesus did at the Last Supper, but we to remember the example in his whole life. Doing this is living this. 

A profound truth of our Holy Thursday liturgy is that these two ways of encountering the Lord are essentially linked together for us as Catholic Christians.  What does this mean?   We will never see Christ in the Eucharist we kneel to adore if we do not first see Christ in those before whom we kneel to serve.

To say it again, we will never see Christ in the Eucharist we kneel to adore if we do not first see Christ in those before whom we kneel to serve.  Where is the towel with your name on it?  That towel is surely found in how you are to love and serve in your family, that towel is around your waist calling you to wash the feet of the person you don’t along with, that towel is to be found for you in one of the ministries of our parish life?

After Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Do you know what I have done for you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and rightly so, for that is what I am.  So, if I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, you are to wash the feet of one another.  I have given you an example, what I have done, you are to do likewise.

On this holy night, we pledge once again to use our hands and feet for the work of forgiveness, for the work of loving each other.  We pledge to wash each other’s feet, to hand over our lives for each other for the sake of the world.  As we gather to celebrate the Eucharist on this Holy Night, we do this in the memory of the One who gave His life for us.

We seek by the way we live our lives to be faithful to the words of Jesus:  Do this in memory of me.

 

Have a Blessed Triduum.

 

 

 

This Palm Sunday, our palms remind us that we are sinners in need of the Lord's mercy, and we now place our lives in the hands of our loving God,

 

 

Today begins the most sacred week of the Church’s entire liturgical year.   We   will walk with Jesus through Holy Week in the pattern of his death and resurrection.  The week we call holy invites us to enter into the heart of our faith. 

 

St Paul in the second Scripture reading reveals who Jesus is: “Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality to God something to be grasped, rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave…he humbled himself.”

 

 

On Palm Sunday the church gives us the opportunity to hear two Gospels. The first one was proclaimed at the beginning of the liturgy as the palms were blessed; the second was proclaimed at its normal time. One of the gospels depicts a triumphal march into Jerusalem. The other on a painful, humanly agonizing and struggling march leading to a death. A high and a low. But, which one is which?  Which one is which?  This is such an important question.

 

Our world would assert that the glorious entry into Jerusalem was the high point and that the death of Jesus on the cross was the low point. Our faith proclaims that just the opposite is true.

 

During the two Gospels that make the Palm Sunday liturgy, we go from the joy of a good parade on Palm Sunday to a parade that ends with the suffering and death of Jesus on Good Friday.  The incredible contrast in moods between the two Gospels proclaimed in this Sunday’s liturgy capture well the broad dynamic of the Paschal Mystery.  The opening Gospel proclaimed in the blessing of the palms is the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem with the disciples shouting Hosanna and placing palm branches along the route

 

The second Gospel proclaimed is the Passion Account of the suffering and death of Jesus.  Before this week is ended, the palm branches of Palm Sunday will be replaced by the thorns and nails of the Friday we call “Good.”  Shouts of “Alleluia” and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” will be drowned out by the mocking sneers and cries of “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

 

 

Traditionally during Holy Week, we focus on the sufferings of Jesus.  But it is not suffering, not even the sufferings of Jesus, that makes this week holy.  Rather it is holy because of love -- the reconciling love of God who has come to live among us in the person of Jesus Christ.   God’s love is the only thing that makes sense out of suffering, conflict, and tragedy.  God’s love does not do away with suffering; the very fact of the cross should teach us that.  God’s love makes it possible to deal with suffering, to remember it, to share in it, and, yes, even to celebrate it.  God’s love is the essence of the story of salvation.

 

In the passion account, Jesus looks like a victim.  He is not triumphant as we understand triumph.  Instead he appears to be a failure.  Judging by one set of standards, Jesus has not met our expectations.  But according to another standard – the standard of unconditional love –he has far surpassed our expectations.   At once regal and lowly, he brought healing and holiness to others through his own pain and brokenness.  He would claim victory by being defeated; he would establish his reign by serving and by dying.  His crown would be a weave of thorns.

 

As we gather in prayer on this day, may we be very conscious that Palm Sunday is not just about ancient history.  It is about NOW.  As we reflect upon the Passion account, we discern how the passion account as the Living Word of God speaks to our lives today.  We see the first apostles, despite their closeness to Jesus, do not stand by Him in His suffering.  What about us? 

 

On the first Palm Sunday,  Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey with palm branches being spread on the road. When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil: “Who is this?” people asked.  In Jesus, God is the one who identifies with and enters into the experience of the people He loves.  Today God is sending a message through Jesus in this Palm Sunday celebration that states that Jesus once again accompanies us in these days.  God will embrace and transform our sufferings so that we may enter more fully into the risen life of Jesus.

 

Morning after morning in these days of Holy Week, we strive to accompany Jesus, present here and now in this community of believers and especially in those who suffer, as he continues his journey toward the heavenly Jerusalem through a world that sometimes cries Hosanna, but often, also, Crucify!  As disciples in every age, we resolve to be ready to suffer with our Master, carrying the cross in union with Him, freely laying down our lives in selfless service, trusting as did Jesus that, despite appearances to the contrary, God’s steadfast love will not abandon us but lead us safely to eternal life.

 

As we listen to the account of the passion and death of Jesus, may we be immersed in the immensity of God’s love for us.  May we also listen to the challenge that is given to us throughout the entire passion narrative:  As the master goes, so goes the disciple.

 

Take the palm branches with you today; let them be a reminder that we are entering the holiest week of the year. The week that begins with the false triumphal entry into Jerusalem and ends with the true triumph over death and the cross. These palms challenge us to remember our role in our Lord’s passion – that those great sufferings endured by our Lord were endured for each of us.

 

These palms can stay with us, calling us to not forget who we are – sinners in need of our Lord’s grace, and what we can be – sinners who have placed our lives in the hands of our loving God.

 

Have a blessed day.