Homily for Sunday, 24 March 2024‒ Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Readings of the day: At the procession with palm branches: Mark 11:1-10. During the Mass: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1-15:27

I have yet to become a major aficionado of the series, “The Chosen,” not by any means because I dislike it or think it is overhyped, but… I need some time to catch up on viewing it. From what I have seen, it is a very well-done series.

Yet in one episode of “The Chosen,” Jesus returns to his hometown, Nazareth, which is overrun with people wanting to see him. Jesus has sent his disciples out on mission to heal the sick and work wonders. He cuts through the noise of all the people who want to see him, the hometown crowds, his friends growing up… And he visits his mother Mary for dinner.

In the introduction credits scene of this episode, Jesus is shown as a little child. Mary and Joseph are affectionate toward Jesus and each other. Jesus receives toys and other gifts from relatives. It is a festival scene. Jesus takes his first steps. One of the gifts he receives at that feast is a bridle for a donkey’s colt. It is a gift from Joseph. A donkey’s bridle would be a strange gift for a toddler, except that this bridle had been passed down through generations to Jesus on Joseph’s side, all the way from King David.

In the homecoming dinner scene between Jesus and Mary, Mother and Son have a long conversation. Mary wants to know all about Jesus’ disciples, his “students”: Who is doing well, what they are doing, who is having a rough time. Jesus says that they are all “quite well” at that moment. And then he pauses; he takes Mary’s hand. And then Jesus asks Mary for the box with the bridle. Mary’s face suddenly shows discomfort.

And Mary asks Jesus, “Are you sure this is your last time here” at home? Jesus replies, “I believe that my time is coming.” This part of the conversation ends with Mary saying to Jesus, “I don’t know that I’m ready.” And Jesus replies finally to Mary, with Mary speaking his words back to him at the same time: “I know how you feel. But you also know that I must do the will of him who sent me.”

Sisters and brothers, on this Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, we are not ready. But Jesus has visited his earthly homes, probably his childhood home, the home of his mother Mary, one last time. He is now at the gates of Jerusalem. We greet Jesus, picking up palm branches and casting them at his feet as he rides through the city gates on the donkey, restrained by the bridle Jesus had picked up during his last visit home. We cry out joyfully, as we have to open this Mass: “Hosanna to the Son of David… Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”!

We are not ready for what is happening or about to happen. We can commemorate this Palm Sunday, Holy Week of which today is the beginning, once every year, all our lives. And we will never be ready for what this Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, for what the Lord’s Passion, death, and resurrection that we will celebrate all within this next week, will mean for us. This Holy Week we can and will hear two different accounts of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus, in the voices of three readers each: Today, Mark’s account of Jesus’ Passion and, on Good Friday, John’s account of the same events.

We can, and we will, hear Isaiah’s four prophetic hymns of a “suffering servant”: The third of four today; the four in order on Holy Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Good Friday this week. And we will not and cannot be ready. We can and will hear St. Paul’s hymn to the Philippians of a Messiah whom, paradoxically, we worship because, “although he was in the form of God… he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” And we will not and can never be ready for Jesus to accept this, “death on a cross.”

I speak for myself first and foremost, a sinner preaching to sinners: I will never be ready for Palm Sunday, for Holy Week, for Holy Thursday of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday, Easter of the Lord’s Resurrection, no matter how many times I celebrate these days with us. If Mary was not ready—the sinless Virgin Mary—then we can never be ready.

Jesus does not wait for us to be ready, sisters and brothers. Jesus walks from Nazareth to Jerusalem’s gates carrying a bridle, the last thing he retrieves from home, for a donkey’s colt. He will go from carrying a bridle to carrying a cross, from riding on that donkey to dying on that cross, within less than a week. Jesus does not wait for us to be ready, to accept death for us, to save us from our sin. No, so single-mindedly does Jesus choose to do “the will of the one who sent” him. And the will of the one who sent him is our salvation, our life forever, in our heavenly home.

Homily for Monday, 30 March 2015‒ Monday of Holy Week

Readings of the day: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 27:1, 2, 3, 13-14; John 12:1-11

“I… have called you for the victory of justice,” God says through the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading. Of whose “victory of justice” does Isaiah speak?

Holy Week is our final preparation for the ultimate “victory of justice”: Jesus’ death on a cross for us. This is not a “victory of justice” brought on by anything we have done right or in retribution for what we have done wrong. This is God’s “victory of justice,” willed freely by God for our salvation.

And so is this not also our “victory of justice”? We are not mere spectators to God’s justice, so how do we make God’s “victory of justice” our own? Our answer to this question may seem obvious. We know what is right and just, and so we are called to act in ways that are right and just. Our Christian faith calls us to protect basic human rights, first and foremost that of life from conception to natural death. Our Christian faith calls us to use the prosperity we have to benefit the most vulnerable: People who are poor; the working poor; people who lack adequate shelter, water, and food; people who are ill; refugees and migrants. To protect the dignity of those most in need is our foremost “victory of justice”; how we become united in God’s “victory of justice.”

But what if we have little to give to help those who are in need? What if we cannot, as individuals, change social structures of sin that keep many mired in poverty; in violence; in injustice even in our own country? What if, even when we reject or at least do not participate in gossip or political partisanship, we see these continue and even increase in our culture? How do we promote God’s “victory of justice” then?

A saying by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta comes to my mind when I think of how we might promote God’s “victory of justice” in our world today. Mother Teresa said: “We can do no great things; only small things with great love.” For whom have we or will we do a small act of kindness today? How will we show to somebody the “victory of [God’s] justice,” which is the same to me as the victory of kindness and mercy? Who has recently shown us God’s justice; God’s mercy; God’s kindness, even in a small way?

And, above all, when we know we have failed to show forth God’s “victory of justice,” may we never despair of God’s mercy. May we never despair, even when we fall into the same sins; the same lack of justice, and even confess these repeatedly. May we heed the words of our Gospel Acclamation to God this morning: “You alone are compassionate with our faults.”

Might Judas Iscariot’s greatest sin not have been stealing from “the contributions” to the poor; not have been his betrayal of Jesus, but despair? God keeps calling us to small acts of “great love,” so may we never despair! God knows our works, individually and socially, for and against justice. Still, God is “compassionate with our faults.” By Christ’s Passion and death God has redeemed us and made us co-workers in his “victory of justice.”

Homily for Friday, 27 March 2015‒ Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 18:2-3a, 3bc-4, 5-6, 7; John 10:31-42

Who here has ever felt stressed, or even distressed? What causes our stress or even distress? Perhaps our distress is from the loss of a loved one; the loss of employment; living in poverty; severe or terminal illness or that of a loved one; our own guilt; strife in our families and marriages; unrest in the world; our children or grandchildren not attending Mass; not being baptized or receiving the other sacraments…

As a priest I am privileged to hear of our many joys as people of faith. I also hear much of what brings us stress and distress. Often, when people speak to me of their stress and distress, I also sense a kind of guilt, especially if somebody’s stress or distress is accompanied by anger; even more if this person is angry at God.

Holy Week begins in just two days. Increasingly in our readings at Mass we hear of stress and distress of the people in our Scriptures. This will continue and intensify as we journey through Holy Week next week. Today the prophet Jeremiah is being denounced; terrorized; betrayed even by the people he once counted as friends. Jesus is in danger of being stoned to death for claiming (rightly) to be God. And the author of our Psalm today is also distressed by his “enemies.”

But what do Jeremiah, Jesus, the Psalmist, and we have in common? I think we have in common the invitation to be honest with one another and with God. If we are joyful, speak of our joy to one another; pray in joy and thanksgiving to God. If we are stressed or distressed, find an outlet for this stress or distress, too: A trusted friend; a family member; a priest; God. But might some of us be thinking: “Nobody likes a complainer? Is it ever right to complain to God in prayer; to be angry with God?”

Over the past several days, even weeks, I have reminded a few people, even myself sometimes, of the value of an effective complaint! Well over half of the Psalms are psalms of lament. The prophets complain often; we hear one of Jeremiah’s bitter laments today. As Jesus hangs on the cross (we will hear this on Palm Sunday, this weekend), he speaks the words of Psalm 22, one of the deepest laments in all of Scripture: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me”?

And so I think it is sometimes appropriate, even to be encouraged, to complain, even to God. Are we not a culture averse to complaining? One of my favorite books about this is Walter Bruggemann’s The Costly Loss of Lament. What a costly loss indeed if we lose the trust in God and in one another necessary to complain effectively when we need to do so!

I am convinced that a good lament arises from trust in one another; trust in God. Listen again to our Psalm response today, so trusting in God’s deliverance from distress: “In my distress I called upon the LORD, and he answered me.”

Yes, lament when necessary in times of distress. Raise your joys and your distress to God, as an act of honesty; an act of trust in one another and in our God.

Homily for Tuesday, 15 April 2014‒ Tuesday of Holy Week

Readings of the day: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5ab-6ab, 16-18, 15, 17; John 13:21-33, 36-38

 

When we hear the word “night,” what descriptions might we associate with night? We might associate with night the mysterious; the hidden.

John sets the scene of the Last Supper that Jesus has with his disciples with a simple description that we hear in our Gospel reading today: “And it was night.”

Judas Iscariot goes out into this night “at once” from this scene of the Last Supper. We know how this event unfolds: Judas is about to betray Jesus, but why? What are his motives? We can know nothing from John’s Gospel except that “Satan entered” Judas, and so he left the Last Supper hurriedly. “And it was night.”

Here, night carries the sense of the mysterious; the hidden. But in John’s Gospel, night does not so much hide in mystery as reveal the truth about who we as Jesus’ disciples really are. And so our question becomes, as Pope Francis asked in his homily on Palm Sunday, “Who are we?”

“And it was night.” Other than Jesus, there are three main characters in this scene on the night of the Last Supper. There is the unnamed disciple “whom Jesus loved” who asks who Jesus’ betrayer will be: “Who is it?” There is Simon Peter, who vows that he “will lay down [his] life for” Jesus, only to have Jesus predict that Peter will deny him three times during this same night. And then there is Judas, who says nothing but exits quickly into the night…

On this night of the Last Supper; in our celebration of Holy Week; in our celebration of this Eucharist in which we remember the Last Supper, who are we?

Are we, at least usually, most like the disciple “whom Jesus loved”; the disciple closest to the heart of Jesus, who cannot imagine how anyone would betray or deny even knowing the Christ; the disciple who, if we continue hearing John’s Gospel, will be at the foot of the cross as Jesus dies, when most of the other disciples flee?

Are we sometimes most like Simon Peter, vowing to keep our faith in Christ in the most difficult of times, only to find out how frail and in need of God’s grace we really are?

Have we ever been like Judas who, perhaps because of pressure or insecurity, succumbs to temptation to sin with eerie silence?

Perhaps we have experienced as disciples of Jesus times when we have been most like any one of these three apostles…

The night reveals who we really are as Jesus’ disciples, and so we might ask: Who are we as we gather to celebrate our Holy Week; our Eucharist? Who are we as we remember the first Eucharist, the Last Supper, when “it was night”?

Homily for Sunday, 13 April 2014‒ Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Readings of the day: At the procession with palm branches: Matthew 21:1-11. During the Mass: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66

Who among us is ready for Holy Week? So Holy Week begins with this, our Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion.

I could ask this same question every time we gather for Mass. Are we ready to celebrate the Eucharist? I suspect that, if we thought carefully, most of us would wonder if it is even possible to be ready for such a magnificent celebration as the Mass. Many of us try to overcome the distractions and worries of our everyday lives when we prepare ourselves for Mass. We are fortunate if we have managed not to become upset at another driver who has cut us off on our way to Mass (Oops!); if we have gotten everybody up and to Mass on time, without any complaining; if before Mass started someone in the next pew or at the back of the church were not disrupting our silent and prayerful preparation by speaking too loudly…

I sometimes find it difficult to be as ready for Mass as I should. Now magnify this difficulty in preparing prayerfully for Mass by the intensity of Holy Week. It may be impossible for any of us to be ready for Holy Week! Fortunately, Jesus does not ask us to be fully ready to encounter him. This would be an impossible task for us. Instead, especially in our Eucharist; our Holy Week; our Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Jesus meets us as we are; as unprepared as we are to encounter him.

The first Holy Week, almost two thousand years ago, and every Holy Week since Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly, was and has been about people who are not ready to encounter our Lord Jesus; and Jesus who knows our lack of readiness to encounter him and yet meets us as we are.

We begin Palm Sunday by receiving palm branches. While it is true that the palm branches we hold are a symbol of royalty (we welcome a king, Jesus Christ, into Jerusalem; into our midst) and also of martyrdom (notice how icons and statues of those who died for their faith, St. Cecilia for example, often include a palm branch), our palm branches also remind us that we are not yet ready to encounter our Lord Jesus.

The crowds welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem waving palm branches crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Within just one week, the crowds would be crying out, “Let him be crucified!” The crowds in Jesus’ time were not ready to encounter their Lord.

Among Jesus’ closest friends, Peter would deny him. Judas Iscariot would betray him. Most of the others would flee the scene. They were not ready to encounter their friend; their Lord.

And here we are. We have begun our celebration of Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion; our Holy Week by hearing, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Within this same Mass, we have joined the cry of the crowds of Jesus’ time: “Let him be crucified!” We are sinners. We are as frail as Jesus’ first apostles. We are not fully ready to encounter our Lord.

Yet Jesus meets us where we are. We experience forgiveness of sin through Christ’s passion and death; through our celebration of Holy Week that begins today: “Hosanna to the Son of David.” By being lifted up on the cross, Jesus lifts us up to eternal life. Are we ready?