Word to the Wise
Sunday, April 1, 2012 - Palm Sunday: At the Mass - ABC
[Isa 50:4-7; Phil 2:6-11; A: Matt 26:14 - 27:66 or 27:11-54 B: Mark 14:1 - 15:47 or 15:1-39 C: Luke 22:14 - 23:56 or 23:1-49,163]“Leave her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me. The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me. She has done what she could. She has anticipated anointing my body for burial. Amen I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Palm Sunday focuses our attention on the beginning of Holy Week. We walk in procession and carry palm leaves to help us recall Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. There is a gospel passage read as part of the blessing of palms and procession! We sing hymns that may contain “hosanna” in remembrance of the crowd that accompanied Jesus, spreading their cloaks and palm branches along the way! This introductory liturgical ritual can overwhelm the Passion account that is read as the gospel of the Mass which follows the procession. The passion is a more somber and less joyful experience, but it balances the moods. I want to call attention to one person who can help us with the rest of Holy Week. It is the woman with the alabaster jar of oil! The words of Jesus’ quoted above are in reaction to the indignation of the bystanders after the woman breaks the valuable jar with the valuable oil and pours it on Jesus’ head!!!! Her gesture is intimate and shows an intuitive solidarity with Jesus as he begins these terrible last days of his life on earth! No wonder he says that her memory would be celebrated wherever the gospel is proclaimed. That is exactly what I want to do here!
If we listen carefully to the passion account, we discover that this woman, Simon the Cyrenian (under coercion), a bystander with a sponge soaked with wine, and Joseph of Arimathea are the only people mentioned who make some physical contact and help (even if it is only to take his body down from the cross and lay it in a tomb). Where are the apostles? Where are WE? Do we run away as they did? What “good thing” can we do this week? Can we enter into this week with Jesus and stand with him? AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
90 ms
4
