It Was For Love ~ Palm Sunday
By Deacon John Rangel, CMCS Co-founder and Director of Mission
(Is 50:4-7; Phil 2:6-11; Mt 26:14 – 27:66, from CMCS article archives)
God is love; Love is demanding.
God is love; Love is self-sacrificing.
God is love; Love is forgiving.
Yes, it was for Love that Jesus endured his suffering and then died for us!
Is there any human being, not to mention any Christian, whose heart is so hard and so callous, that they could see, read or hear of the torments Christ endured during his last twelve hours on earth without being moved to pity and to tears? Even if the victim of this, the cruelest form of execution, crucifixion, were guilty of crimes against humanity, as were the two robbers crucified with him, our hearts should be filled with sympathy for him.
Looking back today, on that sorrow-laden first Good Friday, there is not one of us who would not gladly have done everything in our power to ease the pains and the sufferings of our loving Savior, if we had been there. But, mindful of any past loyalty or lack of loyalty to this Jesus who suffered for us, are we honest with ourselves when we express this sentiment? Did we never imitate Judas and betray Christ and his commandments for the sake of some few unjustly gained pieces of silver? Did we never let our pride and prejudice condemn, offend and unjustly injure out neighbor, just as the pride and prejudice of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin condemned Christ unjustly? Did we never crown him with thorns, and mockingly call him our king when we posed as loyal subjects of his while living lives of sin?
Did we never imitate Pilate, who condemned an innocent man---a man he declared innocent---because he feared for his own future comforts and honors? Was our position in politics and power, or possessions, ever more important to us than the true following of Christ and his teaching as handed down to the Church?
Surely each one of us can see that we played, in a greater or lesser degree, the part not of a comforter or consoler of Jesus in his torments, but the part of one or other of the wicked actors in the tragedy of Calvary. We were there! However, we have the great consolation of knowing that Christ prayed for his tormentors on the cross (Father, forgive them…Lk. 23:34) and that he included us in this solemn request to his Father. We can still repent of our past sins and turn with confidence to him, assured that he will forgive and forget, and give us a new start.
Brothers and sisters, there is no better place to start on our ascent to Calvary in Christ than at Mass. The Mass we celebrate is in itself Palm Sunday and Calvary together in one. We again will mount Calvary where we will not just be witnesses but participants in the very same death of the Lord, once-and-for-all, that saved us. It is here that we will receive God’s strength to be able to be faithful to him, to choose him over Barabbas in various disguises, to value him more than warmth, to value him more than money or any other thing, and to love him to the very end as he loved us. It is meant to help us be faithful to him, the one who loved us so much that as St. Paul tell us today “he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
Assured of his love and strengthen by the Eucharist, let us then journey to and through Good Friday to that glorious Easter Sunday, the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen!
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