Palm Sunday of the Passion 2016
At Mass today, we read the
Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. If you aren’t able to make
it to Mass, may I suggest that you read the Passion yourself, Luke 22:14 – 23:56.
I have found that in every
reading of the Passion there is one phrase, or statement, or detail that jumps
out at me and becomes food for my meditation during the day. I look for it, and
ask the Lord to open the ears of my heart so that I may be able to receive what
is given and let it do its work on me as I go about the usually busy days of
Holy Week and Easter Sunday. It rarely fails me.
Another thing that comes up as I
read the Passion or hear it read is an overwhelming sense of just how much I
fall short of the immense love that is portrayed through the Passion, love that
is meant for me and you, love that redeems us who are so unworthy and often so
ungrateful. As Catherine de Hueck Doherty has written, “. . . his infinite
mercy will cover our sins if only we cry out to him for it. . . . It is our
week to find out how little we love, or how much. And no matter how much we do
love, it is our week to cry out to the Lord to learn to love him more.” (from Season of Mercy, quoted in Give us this day for March, p. 236.)
Palm Sunday is similar to Ash
Wednesday in that something is given out: the ashes, the palms. And on these
occasions there are often people who come to the door of the church to “get”
there ashes and palms, but who do not participate in the liturgies or prayers
of the particular day. I used to look at these people with disdain, but over
the years I’ve learned to look on them with a different attitude (as in the renewal
of my mind—see the reflections for 3/15 and 3/16). There are some people
whose grasp of the faith is based only on what they can grasp as they reach out
for a free gift, a free, unmerited, undeserved gift, and isn’t that true of all
of use on whatever level we may live. I recall the Gospel passage where a woman
reached out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, and that mere touch was enough to
heal her and have her sins forgiven.
We cannot be condescending to
those who reach out in this way; it was enough for Jesus, and although it my
rankle our own sense of superiority (and we all have it in one form or
another), it must be enough for us as well. Meanwhile, those of us whose lives
are centered on the liturgies of Holy Week, it is we who have received a
tremendous gift, again a gift unmerited or undeserved, and a gift which shall
not be taken away from us.
Let us begin, if not with the
liturgy, then at least with some time for reflective reading of the story of
our salvation.
God bless you.
No comments:
Post a Comment