PALM SUNDAY: Journeying with Jesus

PALM SUNDAY: Journeying with Jesus

Introduction:     This week we are offered an invitation not just to journey with Jesus to Calvary, but also to journey deep within ourselves towards our own Calvaries - the Calvary of sickness and pain, of frayed nerves, of broken relationships, seemingly uncontrollable people and situations.  The journey to Calvary is not so much our journeying with him, as his journeying with us. It is God who feels our pain and the misery brought on by our sins. His wounded flesh mirrors that of all too many of his people. Let us allow God into our lives so that he will take our brokenness and make of it something beautiful.

Homily 

Since we will not be able to go to Israel, our parish church must become for us the Holy Land. Within these walls we shall find Jerusalem, the Upper Room, Gethsemane, Calvary and the Tomb. Our focus this week will be the Christ, in the words of the poet Tennyson, “The Lord from Heaven, born of a village girl, carpenter’s son, Wonderful, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God.”

Today the vestibule of our church must become the town of Bethany situated just outside Jerusalem. There will be a hero’s welcome for the “anti-establishment” figure. The centre isle of our church must become for us the long dusty road surrounded by cheers. You can watch the man on the donkey pass by, wordless and swordless.

His ancestor, King David had to flee his royal city, Jerusalem, after being reduced to rags by his own son, Absalom who led the rebellion against him. David had not even a horse to ride on; he had to borrow a donkey  -  symbol of humiliation and shame. Now his descendant, Jesus of Nazareth rides back on a donkey triumphantly into his city amidst cries of “Hosanna” and the waving of palms.

That poor stupid looking animal, the donkey, carried the Lord of creation on its back. Call the mule a fool; but just listen to what this stupid animal has to say, in the words of G.K. Chesterton:

“Fools! For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet;

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.”

Today we enter one of the holiest and most significant weeks of the Christian year. The Liturgy invites us into a profound reflection on a central mystery of Christian faith  -  the Cross of Jesus Christ. No death in human history compares with this one singular death. The great painters and artists of history  -  men like Caravaggio, Mantegna, Masaccio and Piero della Francesca  -  have made it their endeavour to capture the dramatic and tragic events surrounding Jesus’ passion and death. More recently, the actor and director Mel Gibson sought to dramatise in the film “The Passion of Christ” the entire mysterious event. We salute and thank God for all those who have worked to help us grasp the enormity and profundity and glory of Jesus’ death on the cross.

When we listen to the Passion narrative at Mass or read it in the quiet of our own home or meditate upon it at the Stations of the Cross, we become more aware that one thing alone compelled Jesus to die on the Cross  -  and that was love, divine love. The Cross of Jesus is a testament to the power of love  -  a love so amazing, so self-sacrificing and so total that it is the most eloquent, most beautiful and most perfect expression of God’s love that there could ever be.

Listen to what Jordan of Saxony has to say: “The law that is perfect because it takes away all imperfections is charity, and you find it written with a strange beauty when you gaze at Jesus your Saviour stretched out like a sheet of parchment on the cross, inscribed with wounds, illustrated in his own loving blood. Where else is there a comparable book of love to read”?

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were relatively quiet days for Jesus. He spent them largely in reflection and prayer in the great Temple of Jerusalem. For us, this church must become the great Temple. On Holy Thursday, this sanctuary become the Upper Room. The altar becomes the long narrow table where sat. On the night of Holy Thursday, the church becomes the Garden of Gethsemane. Here Jesus undergoes the dark night of the soul. Before him is a cruel death. Our thoughts might be those of the poet Joseph M. Plunkett:

            “I see his blood upon the rose

            And in the stars the glory of his eyes.

            His body gleams amid eternal snows

            His tears fall from the skies.”

Good Friday will see us crowding into the church, which will be transformed into the Way of the Cross. On Holy Saturday, we will come mourning to church but full of hope. As the poet Francis Thompson wrote:

            “Look up, O most sorrowful of daughters,

            For his feet are coming to thee on the waters.”

Finally coming out of church on Easter Sunday we will shout with Gerard Manley Hopkins:       

                        “Let him Easter in us

                        Be a dayspring to the dimness in us

                        Be a crimson crested East.”

PRAYER

Jesus, Lord of the Journey, we thank you

that you set your face firmly towards Jerusalem,

with a single eye and pure intention,

knowing what lay ahead but never turning aside.

Jesus, Lord of the Palms, we thank you

that you enjoyed the Hallelujahs of ordinary people,

living full in that moment of delight

and accepting their praise.

Jesus, Lord of the Cross, we thank you

that you went into the heart of our evil and pain,

along a way that was both terrible and wonderful,

as your kingship became your brokenness

and your dying became love’s triumph.