Palm Sunday Reflection

From Bishop David Walker:

Holy Week 2013 begins today and Christians the world over are called to their special annual sharing in the story of salvation. More than a mere historical remembrance of one man’s movement through a week that

began on a high note of praise and acclamation only to end on the bitterest note of rejection, suffering and execution, Holy Week provides the gathered assembly with what should be an existential and multi-dimensional experience of passion.

Of course, the primary focus of these days is the passion of Jesus Christ. According to the New Catholic Encyclopaedia, the passion was comprised of the suffering, both interior and exterior, endured by Jesus from his last supper with his friends and followers until his death on the cross. From the earliest centuries of the

Church, Christians have sought to better realise and understand the intensity of Jesus’ passion; to that end, Melito of Sardis, living in the second century C.E., in a homily on the passion exhorted, “Listen while you tremble! He that suspended the earth was hanged up; He that supported the earth was supported upon a tree; the Lord was exposed to ignominy with a naked body; God, put to death!”

During the Middle Ages, the efforts of the faithful to concentrate on the mystery of Jesus’ saving death took the form of plays or dramatic re-enactments of the gospel passion narratives. Performed in the vernacular, these plays brought home to young and old alike, the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ passion and death.

In the readings for today’s liturgy, these circumstances are sketched for the contemporary gathered assembly in vivid verbal portraits. Deutero-Isaiah (first reading) prepares the scene by describing the determination of God’s saving servant: Passionately intent upon carrying out the mission given him, and fully reliant on God’s strength and support, he did not yield until his work was completed. Paul, in the second reading from Philippians, takes us behind the physical pain, buffets and spitting to understand the inner attitude of obedience and self-giving which motivated Christ’s passion. In the gospel, Luke guides us through the last hours of Jesus’ earthly life, portraying the passion and death of Jesus as a gift freely given by a forgiving brother (“Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”) and loving Son (“Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit!”).

However, there are also other passions which are to be experienced during this Holy Week. Believers cannot look upon the crucified Jesus or listen to the proclamation of his passion without also being aware of the passionate love which motivated such a sacrifice. This week is much more about blessing, loving and giving than it is about cursing, rejecting, taking and killing. Jesus’ passion was contingent upon and prompted by the incredible love of God for all peoples.

In addition to the passion of Jesus and the passionate love of God, this week is also about the ongoing passion of humankind. Rather than simply steer our energies into sympathising with Christ or with his mother, Mary, by remembering what was, no doubt, the most trying and painful period of their lives, this week, which we call holy, also challenges us toward a personal share in the passion of Christ. Karl Rahner (The Great Church Year, Crossroad Pub. Co., New York: 1994) suggested that we do this by bearing the burdens of our life with simple fortitude and without ostentation. For we share by faith in the passion of Christ precisely by realising that our life, with all its joys and sorrows, is a participation in his destiny. These burdens also give us a mysterious share in the destiny of all human beings. However, believers must take care to avoid the deadly danger of egoism, thinking only of ourselves and our own pain. When we can freely accept our own sufferings as a participation in those of Christ and as our contribution to the destiny of all people, then the burdens of others will be lightened.

During this week of passion – passionate suffering, passionate grace, passionate love and passionate forgiving – each of us is called to remember the Christ of Calvary and then to embrace and lighten the burden of the Christ whose passion continues to be experienced in the hungry, the poor, the sick, the homeless, the lonely and the outcast.