16/03/2008 - Palm Sunday - year
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First Reading Isaiah 50,4-7 Psalm 22 Second Reading Philem 2,6-11
Gospel Reading Matt 26,14-27,66
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
It doesn't seem possible that an enthusiastic, cheering crowd should be transformed
in just a few days into an angry or at the least, an indifferent mob. If we
were to stand in front of Jesus looking at the crowd we would soon be swayed
from praise to blame, from welcoming to rejecting. Today, after having waved
branches of palm trees singing and applauding Jesus, we would see him denied
by both political and religious leaders. The words we will listen too, however,
will help us to freely take position.
The prophet describes what Jesus is living through together with a profound
reason for it. He is offended, denied and put to death not for his sins but
for our sins. The fruit is not oblivion for him, but salvation for us. And so
our participation in the passion, in the suffering, in the death and burial
becomes a participation of love, of offering of ourselves.
We will listen with suffering to what men did to Jesus, we will join him in
his silence, in his patience and longsuffering in order to join him in saying
to the Father: "Not my will, but thy will be done". And these words
we will repeat all week, for it should be a "holy" week, a special
week, rich in thoughts, words and gestures of love towards he whom men refused:
we will accept him!