The Universal Church celebrates Sunday, April 14, 2019 as Palm Sunday. It is also known as Passion Sunday because the theme of Jesus’ suffering and death begins with the reading of the passion. In the entrance antiphon we pray: Six days before the solemn Passover the Lord came to Jerusalem, and children waving palm branches ran out to welcome him. They loudly praised the Lord: Hosanna in the highest. Blessed are you who have come to us so rich in love and mercy. Amen.
The first reading, from the prophecy of Isaiah, is the third of what is usually called “the Servant Songs” of Isaiah. In it, the prophet speaks of the ‘Servant of Yahweh’ who would do the Father’s will and suffer for the sins of others. This passage blends well with Saint Luke’s passion narrative of this day, with its theme of noble and innocent suffering. Like the suffering servant in Isaiah, Christ accepts his suffering and death for the salvation of mankind.
In the second reading, from the Letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul presents one of the most beautiful passages he has ever written. He explains to his converts of Philippi how Christ came from heaven, humbled himself, died for their sins and God raised him up from death on the third day.
The Gospel presents Saint Luke’s passion narrative, which is a story of victory, with Christ committing into his Father’s hands the Spirit which anointed him, so that his disciples might receive the same Spirit from on high. It presents a paradox of people acclaiming Christ one day as the Son of David, singing ‘Hosanna’ to him, only to turn around a few days later and shout, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’
In the course of the Holy Week, let us pray to identify ourselves with the passion of our Lord so we can have a share in the glory of his resurrection.
First Reading: Isaiah 50: 4-7.
The Lord has given me a disciple’s tongue. So that I may know how to reply to the wearied, he provides me with speech. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. The Lord has opened my ear. For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away. I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard; I did not cover my face against insult and spittle. The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by insults. So, too, I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be shamed.
V/. The word of the Lord.
R/. Thanks be to God.
Comment
This passage is from the third ‘Song of the Servant of Yahweh’, which emphasizes the servant’s docility to the word of God. Prompted by the Spirit of God, Isaiah gives an account of the passion and death of the Lord as if he were actually there. He speaks of the ‘Servant of Yahweh’ who is an obedient servant of God and who suffers without a word of complaint because of his total trust in God. However, if he suffers in silence, it is not out of cowardice, rather it is because God helps him and makes him stronger than the people persecuting him. In the end, he will stand strong while his tormentors will be struck down.
The Church sees the words of this song as finding fulfillment in Jesus Christ, especially what the song says about the servant of God suffering in silence. As the “servant of Yahweh” does his Father’s will and does not refuse to suffer for others, so does Christ, the ‘suffering servant’ accept his suffering and death for our salvation. Christ is beaten, scourged and crowned with thorns, and his own people reject him and put him to death. We are urged to recall this song of the suffering servant as we meditate on the suffering of our Lord, whose enemies “spat on his face; and struck him; and some slapped him” (Mt 26:67).
But Christ has full trust in the Father. He knows his Father loves him and will in the end glorify him. For that, he is ready to obey his Father onto death on the cross. We pray for the courage to stand before the suffering Lord with what the Psalmist calls ‘clean hands and a clean heart’ (Ps 23), desiring not worthless things but blessing from the Lord and reward from our God. Amen.
Second Reading: Philippians 2: 6-11.
His state was divine, yet Christ Jesus did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are, and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross. But God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
V/. The word of the Lord.
R/. Thanks be to God.
Comment
In his letter to the community of the church of Philippi, Paul presents one of the most beautiful passages he has ever written. He makes clear in this reading that Jesus Christ is our God, and was God before he took human form in the Incarnation. Divinity and humanity are affirmed in the same breath. As we say in the Nicene Creed, Christ is “the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before time began, light from light, true God from true God.” Although he was God, Christ did not insist on this dignity but rather took the form of a servant. He chose the way of humility and obedience to his Father to the point of death on the cross for our salvation.
Christ’s humility and obedience to his Father reveals his love for us, for, as Saint John puts it, “greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15: 13). That is what Christ has done for us. Paul then urges Christians to be prepared to sacrifice what is theirs on behalf of the community at large. We pray with Saint Augustine: “Do not abandon me, and do not despise me, God my Saviour. And do not despise a mortal for daring to seek eternity. For you, O God, heal the wounds of my sin. Amen.”
Gospel: Luke 19: 28-40.
After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'" So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" They said, "The Lord needs it." Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise be to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
In today’s liturgy, we recall Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem where he has an appointment with death. Throughout his ministry, Jesus has had to face the prospect of Jerusalem, the city that had killed countless other prophets before him. Now it is his turn to face the reality of death as the city confronts him.
First of all, he prepares his entry into the city by asking his disciples to go and fetch the required colt. They bring it and cover its back with some clothes to serve as a saddle. The fact that no one has ever sat on this colt shows how Jesus’ presence is something completely new in history. As the procession moves on, people throw palms and their cloaks on the ground and shouts of "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" and “Hosanna to the son of David” rent the air to the extent that some of the leaders of the people are worried as they wonder whether Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the liberator they have been waiting for. But Jesus tells them that even if the people were to keep quiet, the stones would acclaim him.
The exuberance of the crowd characterizes Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday. It marks the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem to accomplish what he is destined to do, that is, die and rise again on the third day. It inaugurates an important week during which Christians focus on the mystery of their salvation. It is the beginning of a week of the mystery of dying and rising, the mystery of Christ as he is humiliated on a journey to the Cross and the mystery of his exaltation on Easter Sunday. It is the inauguration of a week of the mystery of suffering on Good Friday and glorification on Easter Sunday. It is the mystery of death that gives rise to life. It is the mystery of the apparent defeat on Good Friday, which is crowned with victory on Easter Sunday
It is the story of a crowd that today cries “Hosanna to the son of David!” to Jesus only to turn around and shout “Crucify him!” on Good Friday. Even those who are his companion will desert him and say “I do not know him!” It is because of these two different sides of this mystery that we call this Sunday Passion or Palm Sunday. It is a Sunday that combines agony and sadness with joy and ecstasy.
This Sunday therefore sets the tone of the contradiction that we shall live all this week, Holy Week. For us Christians, members of Christ’s body, our suffering should be a sharing of Christ’s suffering. Like Christ, our suffering should not shrink or diminish us. From the experience of Christ, Christians should understand that their suffering is not in vain. It is a suffering that opens up to something joyful. If our suffering is our Good Fridays, then as Christians we must look forward to the joy of our Easter Sundays.
The Fathers of Vatican II remind us that “By suffering for us, He not only provided us with an example for our imitation. He blazed a trail and if we follow it, life and death are made holy and take on a new meaning.”
This week, our minds, hearts and souls shall be overwhelmed to see the suffering of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He suffers this way because of sin – the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and our own personal and individual sins. Christ’s suffering spells out for us, as nothing else can, the infinite gravity of sin, which leads to the death of God himself made man; moreover, this physical and moral suffering which Jesus undergoes is also the most eloquent proof of his love for his Father – obedience unto death. Only one thing can therefore explain why Christ undergoes this redemptive passion – what one theologian has described as his immense, infinite, indescribable love for us.
In the Passion passage, we are with Jesus at the Last Supper as he institutes the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist and the sacrament of Holy Orders (the Christian priesthood). In our presence, he celebrates the first Holy Mass with the breaking of bread in which he is really and truly present. He then instructs his Apostles to perpetuate what he has done. The Church has always taken Christ’s words “Do this in remembrance of me” to mean that he made his Apostles and their successors the priests of the new Covenant who would renew the Sacrifice of Calvary in an un-bloody manner in the celebration of Holy Mass.
Let us therefore pray for the grace and the courage to contemplate Jesus’ passion, identify ourselves with his suffering and share later in his triumphal resurrection on Easter Sunday. Amen.
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