Mar. 28, 2010: Palm Sunday (C)

During this week, I had someone in my office for confession. After I gave the absolution, I asked the person if they have seen the movie, "The Passion of Christ" by Mel Gibson. The person said, 'no,' and I told the person that it is a tough movie to watch. But I wanted to show the person the portion where Jesus took up the cross and meets his mother along the Way of the Cross. If you remember that movie, physical suffering by Jesus was not left to the imagination. It's strange. I see excessive if not gratuitous violence and blood on most of the action, horror, and science fiction movies in the theaters these days, yet it was difficult to watch this one, on Jesus. We came upon the scene where Blessed Mother made it past the crowd and was catching her breath. Then her son nearby fell under the heavy weight of the cross, and the cross nearly crushed his body. As Blessed Mother witnessed this, she hesitated approaching him. Then her mind jogged back to the day when Jesus was a little child, when he fell. She remembered how she ran toward him, pulled him to her bosom and said, "I am here." This was the moment Jesus needed his mother to be there for him. She ran, fought the soldiers who was blocking him, and grasped his face and said, "I am here." Jesus, comforted by her presence grasped again the cross and reminded her, "See mother, I make all things new." At that moment, hot tears streamed down from my face. Jesus reminded me again how he made all things new in my life, how he turned a sinner into a priest.

Why does Heavenly Father give us the Holy Week every year? This is not like some re-run of a sitcom or a re-run of Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments every year. Some real change happens every year to us through the Holy Week. And only when we stay faithfully with Jesus through the Palm Sunday, the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, and at the Calvary on Good Friday, do we hear Jesus says to us, "I make all things new in your life" on Easter. So do not abandon him this Holy Week. Nothing is more important than the week that changed the entire world. This is the week that will change you.