Homily for Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
13 April 2014
13 April 2014
I
have a cross in my room with a quote on it by William Penn, the man for whom
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is named. It reads:
“No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no
glory; no cross, no crown.”
If
I may say so, I believe that Mister Penn was not simply talking about the
Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, but was also talking about our participation in
the Paschal Mystery.
My
friends, if we do not take to heart that story which we have just heard
proclaimed, if we do not take to heart those actions by which sin and death were
destroyed and our salvation won, then we completely miss the point about why we
celebrate this glorious day at all.
If
we avoid the pain, the thorns, or the gall, then we have missed the point of
being Christian. If we avoid the Cross, then we cannot truly appreciate the
glory or the gift of the Resurrection.
Our
world wants to ignore the Cross and everything that it brings. It reduces the
Cross to a simple piece of jewelry. Our world wants to get rid of suffering; it
will do everything in its power – moral or immoral – to bring alleviation.
Jesus
Christ endured His Passion and Death so that we may understand that there is a
humble nobility in suffering. Our Lord did not subject to undergo anything for
Himself that we would not be subject to. He wanted us to know that even in
grips of Death, itself, the glory and victory of our God is that which should
rule our hearts and our lives.
This
week we celebrate the reality of what it is to follow Christ. We have journeyed
to Jerusalem with Him. In a few days, He will establish the sacred priesthood
and give to us the very gift of Himself in the Eucharist. The next day, we will
betray Him, despise Him and send Him to die. We will nail Him to the Cross, and
watch Him die as He sheds His Precious Blood for us. We will bury Him in an
unmarked tomb. And we will wait.
But
we know how this chapter of the story ends: Our Lord is victorious. The Passion
and Death of our Lord is the ultimate love story. Christ endured all this evil
so that we may ultimately experience the ecstasy of the union with our God.
We
must allow the Cross to become OUR love story. Not just our love for God, but
also our love for one another. Even in the midst of the horrors of life, even
in the midst of our days when darkness seems to claim any glimpse of light, we
must lovingly gaze upon our Lord on the Cross; we must see past the brutality and
revulsion and recognize the ecstasy of Love gazing back at us.
Pope
Francis reminds us in Evangelii Gaudium:
“How
beautiful it is to stand before the Crucifix, simply to be under the Lord’s
gaze, so full of love” (EG 264).
If
we wish to obtain for ourselves the palm, the throne, the glory and the crown,
then we must submit ourselves to the pain, the thorns, the gall and,
ultimately, the Cross. We must allow the Cross to be our love story. We must gaze at the broken Body of our Lord so to understand the eternal Heart of Divine Love. We must
undergo the Passion of Christ so that we may truly live the ecstasy of the Resurrection.
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Enjoy the journey . . .
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