Palm Sunday of the
Passion of the Lord
Dear brothers and sisters,
It seems a strange thing that as today we commemorate
those “crowds preceding [Jesus] and those following” him as he made his way
into his royal city of Jerusalem that we find ourselves staying at home
(Matthew 21:9). We do not want to be at home today and would rather join those
crowds, yet here we are. The motivations for our desiring to join that great
throng may be holy or social or something altogether different, but we understand
we should be among them. What are we to make of this?
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| Unknown, Osnabrück alterpiece, Westphalia, 1370s |
In Saint Matthew’s account of the Lord’s
triumphant entry into Jerusalem, he provides a curious detail of those crowds.
There appears to be two different crowds, one leading Jesus and one following
him. In years past, in which crowd have we walked? Today, in which crowd would
we prefer to be? In years to come, in which crowd will we be found?
We might say that that crowd which
preceded Jesus did so out of a desire to lead him, to guide him, to show him what
he should be doing and how he should be doing it. Some, perhaps, were like
Saint Peter, who once said to Jesus, after he predicted his coming Passion and
Death, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). Can you imagine such a thing, Peter rebuking his Lord? However foolish,
however bold, however arrogant, Peter’s intentions were good, though they were
misguided. Jesus was not doing what Peter expected. How often do we imitate
Peter in this? How often do we try to pick out the Lord’s path for him,
thinking we somehow know better?
We might say that that crowd which
followed Jesus did so because they allowed his teachings to penetrate their
hearts, or at least because they desired to do so. And yet, it was only a few
hours later when this crowd, like the one preceding him, abandoned Jesus
because he did not do what they expected of him. Though they allowed his
teachings to penetrate their hearts, they did not let his teachings take hold
in their hearts. Like that crowd,
We want an almighty and strong
God; we want to have faith in a God who gives us certainties and security. That
reassures us in this sea of fears and uncertainties in which we now find
ourselves.
However, the Gospel tells us that
the Christian faith is based on hope and love, not on certainty. He won’t solve
all our problems, He won’t give us all the certainties that our human nature
needs, but He won’t leave us alone.[1]
Have we allowed Jesus’ teachings to
penetrate our hearts? How often do we fail to live up to them? How often do we
also walk away from him when he does not do what we think he should?
In his homily this morning, His Holiness
Pope Francis approached the motivations of these two crowds – of us - from a
different perspective. He said:
Let us look within. If we are honest with ourselves,
we will see our infidelities. How many falsehoods, hypocrisies and
duplicities! How many good intentions betrayed! How many broken
promises! How many resolutions left unfulfilled! The Lord knows our
hearts better than we do. He knows how weak and irresolute we are, how
many times we fall, how hard it is for us to get up and how difficult it is to
heal certain wounds. And what did he do in order to come to our aid and
serve us? He told us through the Prophet: “I will heal their faithlessness; I
will love them deeply” (Hosea 14:5). He healed us by taking upon himself
our infidelity and by taking from us our betrayals.[2]
How often do we want to go before Jesus,
to precede him, and tell him what to do? How often do we want to follow Jesus,
to get behind him, and go wherever he leads?
Although we cannot physically join those
crowds today to greet Christ the King, that does not mean we should not strive
to determine where our deepest loyalty lies, with him or with ourselves. Rather
than welcoming him into the holy city of Jerusalem, we can welcome him today into
the inner recesses of our hearts with exultant shouts. Let us renew in these
days our desire not to precede Jesus, not to lead him, but to follow him
faithfully until we can join with each other together to sing, “Hosanna to the
Son of David” (Matthew 21:9). Amen.
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