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 Sunday, 29 March 2015‒ 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

For how many of us do the events of Jesus’ Passion and death seem somewhat “over the top”; somewhat extravagant?

Our Lord’s Passion according to Mark that we have just heard begins with a woman anointing Jesus’ head with expensive “perfumed oil,” anticipating Jesus’ death and burial. This is an extravagant act of love, to be matched only by Jesus’ own death on the cross for us. The woman’s love is so extravagant that many at table become “infuriated with her.” But Jesus says, “Wherever the Gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

In hearing Jesus’ Passion we remember the woman’s anointing of Jesus: Extravagant love. We remember many counter-witnesses to this extravagant love of the woman. We remember extravagant acts of fear, denial, and betrayal by Jesus’ closest friends. We remember extravagant cruelty as Jesus is led to a shameful death outside the city walls of Jerusalem. We remember the extravagant fidelity of the women who remained at the cross, who did what Jesus’ own Apostles could not do at Gethsemane: “Watch and pray.” We remember the extravagant mercy and courage of Joseph of Arimathea, who took Jesus’ body for burial.

But do we only remember? Indeed, we remember the extravagance of Jesus’ Passion; the extravagance it took for God to redeem us; to save us by the death of God’s only Son. We remember, but we also encounter. How? We encounter God’s extravagant, saving love when we speak it; when we pray by it; when we act by it.

When has somebody been kind to us, even in a small way? When have we been kind; done or said something loving for another; just prayed for another person’s good? These are our encounters with Christ’s Passion; with the Gospel of love; with this story of God’s extravagant love for us with which Christ died and would rise again for us, for our salvation.

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?