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Palm Sunday B, Holy Week (March 28, 2021)
Your Daily Blessing: May God grant you power to overcome all difficulties in your life. Amen!
Read Is 50:4-7; Phil 2:6-11; Phil 2:6-11; MK 14:1-15:47; pray Psalm 22[21].
NARRATION: Today we once more come full circle to Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday), when we celebrate the triumphal entry of the Lord into Jerusalem – initiating the countdown to his arrest, suffering, death, and resurrection. It is very important we pay close attention to the details of how he handled himself in the events leading up to his death.
It is an archetype as to how we should conduct ourselves during our own “passions” of life. All his visible life, he has been “doing things”: preaching, teaching, healing, grooming his disciples.
During the short period between his arrest and death, he things were done to him – that is why we say, ‘he entered his “passion”’ (from latin roots, past participle: ‘pati’ – meaning ‘suffered,’ ‘endured’. So passion Sunday is a replay of how Jesus ‘suffered’ or ‘endured’ what was done to him.
He was betrayed by his friends, deserted by his disciples, arrested and tortured by the very people he came to save! He was spat at, and flogged mercilessly until his whole body was lacerated.
Crowned with thorns, and buffeted by lowly soldiers, he was led away like a common criminal; condemned to die a most horrible death by his own creatures!
A heavy cross laid on his shoulders, all the way to Golgotha, mocking and flogging, as he fell many times. He was stripped naked, nailed to the cross, and laid out to die.
Even common water they refused a dying man, but offered vinegar instead. He felt utterly helpless, that he cried out, “Father, why have you abandoned me.”
Perhaps, the only crude kindness he received was a searing thrust of a spear that pierced his and literally ‘broke his heart.’ Yet he died praying, “father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” That’s how he won.
We all have our passions – when things are done to us and we seem helpless. In Jesus’ passion all human sufferings were represented, endured, redeemed. For some of us our passion began from childhood: in form of abuse from caregivers, foster parents, parents, relatives, neighbors, authorities. We were helpless.
As youths, or adults, we have experienced hatred, betrayal, bulling, infidelity, from friends, spouses, others. In our relationships, businesses, careers, we have experienced ‘failure’.
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For some, it was ‘sickness’, for others, it was ‘loss’ of loved ones, or something precious, that crushed us. Yet for others, it was persecution (gossips), calumny, that did the job. How did/do we deal with these? What message do you get from Jesus’ passion? Yes, he endured it patiently, but he also cried out to his father.
The law of 3Ps: P=PP is Passion is borne through patience and prayer. John added: “It is finished.” It has an expiring date: “the deed is done” for your passion changes you – it unveils the greater you.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you endured suffering and death in order to teach me how to handle the sufferings and pains of my own life, including the death I must die someday. Grant me the grace to triumph over mine like you did. Amen.
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