Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and you're listening to Season 4, Episode 13 for Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord: March 28, 2021. Our Gospel reading is Mark, Chapter 14 through Mark Chapter 15, version 47, a link to which may be found in the show notes for this podcast. And now, Father Mark’s homily for Palm Sunday 2021.
“Your Faith Will Be Shaken," by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
All of you will have your faith shaken. All of you will have your faith shaken.
Anyone who has been serious about a pursuit of God knows just how true that statement really is. If you look back over the course of our faith lives, there are many things that can certainly rattle and shake our faith. Many human experiences can cause us to wonder where God's presence might be, or even if God's presence might be.
Doubt and despair, confusion, disappointment, anxiety, fear, and myriad other experiences can all lead us to a faith that is shaken. In and through it all, we look at the humbleness of our lives and we may even find ourselves crying out to God in moments of desperation; in moments when we need to physically, tangibly feel that presence and constellation; moments that we want God to come in and fix the mess that we find ourselves currently in. Many of us, perhaps in our lives, have even had those words that were on Jesus' lips on our own: Father, if it is your will take, this cup from me. I don't want to have this burden. I want to be over this darkness.
And so we all can relate to those very tender and poignant feelings that our Lord himself experienced on the way to the cross. And we think that if God exists, or if God really cares, that he's going to somehow take us away from that very difficult journey to bring us to a place where it's easier. Where I don't have to feel that discomfort, where I don't feel so lonely and I don't feel despair and I can see what I need and want to see, but yet we find ourselves still struggling with that darkness.
And so our faith can be shaken because we're expecting something from God that is not coming as we would hope. And so this week that we call Holy is an opportunity for us to take all of the darkness of our lives, all of the confusion of our lives, all of those human experiences that can pull us away from God, to the example and the life of Christ. And to see in there that the mystery, the wisdom, is found not in asking God to be removed from the cross, or in asking God to be taken down from the cross, but in asking God to find a way through and beyond the cross. A way through the darkness to light away from death to life.
And for those who are serious about their relationship with God find that there is wisdom in obedience; Of allowing all of that stuff that is a part of our human experience to burn through us; to feel the depths of despair and to there find a pearl of life that we didn't have before, a strength of conviction ,of courage, of hope, that was not to be had before.
And so for those who are serious about their relationship with God, a lot can be learned from the example of Jesus Christ. A lot can be learned from the way of the cross. So important this week to meditate deeply upon all that Jesus experienced, and the new life that comes as a result of his obedience and his fidelity to his Father.
May this week truly be one that is holding for each and every one of us
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.