PROCESSI NG WITH JESUS

BLESSING OF PALM AND HOMILY OF PALM SUNDAY

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

It's the beginning of Lent. We have prepared our hearts by penance and charitable works. Today we gather to herald with the whole church the beginning of the celebration of our Lord's Passion, His sacred mystery, that is to say, His Passion and Resurrection. For it was to accomplish this mystery that he entered his own city of Jerusalem. Therefore, with all faith and devotion, let us commemorate the Lord's entry into the city for our salvation, following in his footsteps, so that being made by the grace of partakers of the cross, we may have a share in his resurrection. Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, sanctify these branches. I invite you to hold up your palm branches. We'll go around. We're going to process the entrance. You already bless the side, I'll go the outside. We will process and bless the palm as we come around. So that being made partakers in the cross of Christ, we also share his resurrection. We ask the Lord to bless us who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. After the reading of the gospel, the palm will be blessed. When Jesus and his disciples drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethpage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tethered and a colt with her. Untie them. Bring them here to me. If anyone should say anything to you, reply, the master has need of them. Then he will send them at once. This happened, so that what had been spoken to the prophet Zechariah will be fulfilled. Say to the daughters of Zion, Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and a colt, the fowl of a beast of burden. The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them. They brought the ass and the colt, and laid their cloaks upon it, and he sat upon them. The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees, strewn them on the road. The apostles and the crowds preceded him, and those following kept crying out and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna into the highest. And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken and asked, Who is this? And the crowds replied, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we process, let us sing our song of welcome. How does Jesus enter our lives? Triumphantly, carrying the cross, on the cross, suffering, or risen? The paradox of the cross hits us today dearly. The prophecies come true in the words of the evangelists. Riding on a donkey, not coming in victoriously on a horse, coming with his disciples, people waving branches, the prophecies come true. Up until he's brought before Pilate, the prophecies are coming true. Even as he's placed in the tomb, the prophecies are true. How do we allow Jesus to enter our lives? He came to be one of us, and it's very significant for us to pull him into our lives. Whether we are suffering, whether we have relatives who are suffering, whether we watch the world as it suffers, it's important for us to pull Jesus into our lives, even if we have to say, off of the donkey, because he is with us. The resurrection proves that, proves that the scriptures were fulfilled. And what does his life show us? That his message of love prevails. Love will conquer all. Oh, there are so many times through the history of the world. Persecution and bombings and terror and holocausts took place. A lot of suffering throughout the world's history. Children, men and women, innocent people suffering, and yet his life shows us, even as he suffered with us, that love does conquer all, that he will make the final gesture, calling us to himself and walking with us. Paul refers to him as Lord, but he also reminds us that this Lord, raised by God, sent to us, exalted to the highest heavens, on earth, was crucified and died. And not only did he die, he died an ignominious death on the cross, a disgusting death. As any of us who have visited the Holy Land know, the route to Calvary was marked by several events that we piously recall Veronica, the sirene, the falls, the soldiers, the spitting, the women who came to his side. This is God's Son on earth walking for us, giving us the route to follow to love. Because that's what conquers everything. Love. He rose from the dead out of love. As we look at the Holy Land today, tears have to come to our eyes when there are no processions, there are no Hosannas in the streets of Via Dolorosa. It's bombing, it's tears, it's disaster that the people, our sisters and brothers of the Holy Land, are commemorating. And inside their churches, they're hovering as they hear the same words we heard today. And they're seeking shelter and prayers, afraid to walk in public as they have for centuries since the Franciscans became the administrators of the Holy Land, walked through centuries carrying palm branches, singing hosannas, optimistic songs of praise. But even today, 2016, 2026 years after that event, there are no hosannas in the streets. There's disaster in the streets. And the disaster is due to human failing. Unable to love, unable to bring that message of love into the lives of each other and into the world. The message that has tainted the Holy Land is one of power and greed and hate. And yet God the Father sent his son to conquer all that and be victorious with love. The message goes on. And you and I are responsible for keeping that message alive. Just as our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land are responsible for keeping that message alive. And the message is the sadness of the Holy Land, the tears, the bombing, will be gone one day. And peace will prevail. And doesn't that seem odd? Doesn't that seem almost impossible as we read the headlines and see the headlines every day? And yet the message of Jesus Christ, because of Easter, will prevail. The message is love. But it doesn't look that way. And this isn't unique for the twenty-first century. This has been going on for centuries. The crusades, the invasions, all of it through the Holy Land, the most holy of earth, was desecrated and is still being desecrated. Bring the Holy Land into our own lives. We're invited this week to be part of the Passion of Jesus Christ, to sit with His disciples at the Last Supper, to be present for the washing of the feet, all of it as a way of sucking in the pain, the hate, the terror to give rise to the message love. We do this to walk with Christ, to put our own souls in the hands of Jesus, to bring Him into our sufferings, whether it's family, international, whether it's marital, whatever suffering we are, as we pray for those who are ill, as we pray for those who have died, we pray with hope, because this week gives us that hope. We travel with Christ, we'll carry his cross, we'll kiss the cross, we'll watch the washing of the feet, but it all leads to the resurrection. Friday will be the most solemn day of our year. I remember as a child, my mother would remind us that this day, Friday, is the day Christ carried his cross, and we remember his suffering. And what she would say to us as children, you can go outside, but only to walk to church. No jumping, no playing, no ball games in our neighborhood, predominantly Italian. We all observe that. Because her philosophy was this is the day Christ fell on the earth three times. This is the day his life made our earth sacred. And his message of love stays with us as we go through the falls of our own lives, as we go through the squabbles and the angers and the hurts of our own lives and the prejudices of our own lives. We fall with Christ to rise with him. How do we travel with Christ? How do we allow Christ to travel with us? Are we spectators or participants in his passion? If we imitate him, we will know the resurrection. If we will ignore him, we will not understand Easter. His suffering, his cross, his tears, his spit on his face helped us to accept God's will in our own lives. That pain, that death, reminds us that he did it first for our sakes, and that we can continue the message of hope, of love, and of Easter, if we walk with Christ and bring him into our lives.