March 24, 2013: Palm Sunday (C)
Many of us shoot home videos of our trips and events. Have you tried to show your friends a movie of your trip? Were they excited to see it? They may not be as engaged in watching it as you are. Why is that? When the images are part of our own experience or pertain to those that we personally care about, they evoke emotions in us; we empathize with their experience. If images are not part of our own experience nor related to those we know or love, they seem to us as simply images; we watch it as a disinterested and perhaps even indifferent observers. Did the Passion narrative we just proclaimed, engage you? Or did you feel detached?
For me, the Passion narrative hit me in a personal way. This week I presided over three burials. Three sorrowful mothers buried their sons. One died before even reaching outside his mother’s womb. His casket was a little larger than a shoebox. One in his 30’s died in the middle of the night without even a warning--only a word of goodnight before he went to bed. Another died struggling with cancer for several years. How can I describe to you the sorrow that I saw on the faces of those mothers! One mother’s grief was so overwhelming that she could not even walk after the service.
I wonder then how Blessed Mother and Heavenly Father felt as they witnessed their Son’s Passion. We know how we react when our own family member suffers. How did they feel when their son’s friend abandoned him and no one stood by him as he was denounced by a mob jury who cried out for his death? What was it like to watch your own son struggle to carry a wooden beams weighing more than 100 lbs. and then be hoisted up and face a brutal death?
How could we not make the Passion of Our Lord part of us? In the beginning of the narrative, Jesus invites all of us to take seat among the disciples in the Last Supper and listen. He said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer...This is my body, which will be given for you... I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” If Jesus is Our Lord and our Master, should we not be moved when he is about to suffer for us? If we still feel detached, do we need to look within to see what has turned us away from him? Have we filled our lives with self-preoccupation that has hardened our hearts? Many avoid the image of Our Lord on the Cross because they feel it is cruel and depressing. They’d rather celebrate the bare cross to commemorate what’s been accomplished. But the Lord’s suffering and death on the Cross was an act of his great love. This is how we should know how much he loves us, that we are truly special and worth dying for. Take away his body from the crucifix, and we take away the daily reminder of how we continue to be under his loving gaze. We need to be disciples who stand with him, for he said to us, “It is you who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father has conferred one on me.” This is how the grieving mothers of those sons can endure their sufferings. This is how all of us can endure sufferings, by remaining close and standing by Jesus. By doing so, we begin to understand the depth of his love for us.
We now have entered the most holy week of our Church year. If it was our own son who was going to suffer, what would we give up this week for him? What would we do to be near him?
I wonder then how Blessed Mother and Heavenly Father felt as they witnessed their Son’s Passion. We know how we react when our own family member suffers. How did they feel when their son’s friend abandoned him and no one stood by him as he was denounced by a mob jury who cried out for his death? What was it like to watch your own son struggle to carry a wooden beams weighing more than 100 lbs. and then be hoisted up and face a brutal death?
How could we not make the Passion of Our Lord part of us? In the beginning of the narrative, Jesus invites all of us to take seat among the disciples in the Last Supper and listen. He said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer...This is my body, which will be given for you... I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” If Jesus is Our Lord and our Master, should we not be moved when he is about to suffer for us? If we still feel detached, do we need to look within to see what has turned us away from him? Have we filled our lives with self-preoccupation that has hardened our hearts? Many avoid the image of Our Lord on the Cross because they feel it is cruel and depressing. They’d rather celebrate the bare cross to commemorate what’s been accomplished. But the Lord’s suffering and death on the Cross was an act of his great love. This is how we should know how much he loves us, that we are truly special and worth dying for. Take away his body from the crucifix, and we take away the daily reminder of how we continue to be under his loving gaze. We need to be disciples who stand with him, for he said to us, “It is you who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father has conferred one on me.” This is how the grieving mothers of those sons can endure their sufferings. This is how all of us can endure sufferings, by remaining close and standing by Jesus. By doing so, we begin to understand the depth of his love for us.
