by Fr. Jose “Joesum” Sumampong, Jr.
March 28, 2021
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Isaiah 50:4-7 / Psalm 22: 8-9, 17-20, 23-24 /
Philippians 2:6-11 / Mk 14: 15:-47
THIS DEATH SPEAKS TO US IN SILENCE
Word: This short commentary is meant to help every Christian who wishes to spend a really “HOLY” Week, not simply a HOLIDAY! The liturgical services of this week are the most beautiful and significant of the entire year. But they are lived interiorly only if we meditate personally the “events” which are evoked during this week. During this week we are to recall undoubtedly the most important events in the history of mankind. The events we celebrate have turned the current of history, and changed the face of the Earth.
It is not enough to read the Passion once, and rapidly at that. We must read it again, and allow ourselves to be penetrated by it. We have not yet noted clearly enough the place held by the Passion in the “Good News of Jesus Christ” as a whole. In the Luke’s narrative, the Passion occupies a big part of the entire gospel. What would we say today of a biography in which the most important section would be the narrative of the person whose life is written?
This is all the more astonishing because these narrative were written after the Resurrection, by men living in the light of the Paschal triumph.
Yes, this death of Jesus must be of capital importance, and we must discover its secret.
The first part of the Passion (Luke 22:14-23.56) narrates the plot against Jesus, the anointing at Bethany, the treason of Judas, the preparations for the Pasch, the revealing of the treason of Judas, the institution of the Eucharist and the agony in Gethsemane. All these details are given to tell us that Jesus began by living his Passion interiorly before it unfolded physically.
Four times is the word “Pasch” repeated in this narration. The Jewish Pasch evoked their liberation. An oppressed people had been liberated with the help of God.
Jesus lived his death like a “Pasch”. Far from running away from the painful and humiliating reality of his human condition, he surrendered to it through a loving adhesion to God. Going therefore through the experience of death, Jesus changed its meaning: “He made himself obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).
We also see how, during his Passion, Jesus is praying unceasingly. Luke tells us that, both in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, Jesus prayed in Aramaic, his mother tongue, the language he used as a little child when Mary was teaching him to pray.
Moreover, in the Passion narrative, Jesus at last declares Who He Is. During his entire public life, he asked all those who guessed his secret, to keep silent about it, because one can “understand” God only by looking at the Cross. He is “Son”, but not as humanity imagine it. He is “King”, but not the type of king people expect. He is “the servant” who gives his life for others.
Finally, let us note that there is the act of faith by the centurion. This act of faith is prompted by “the way in which Jesus dies” and not by the Resurrection, which will happen only later.
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Order: Let us follow Jesus. He announces that “all” will abandon him, and that Peter the leader is going to deny him. He chooses “three” of them to remain with him in his agony, and three times he comes back to beg them for support, but they “are asleep” (Then, all “abandon him and flee away” (). On the cross, Jesus feels abandoned even by God. We are challenged to total solitude. Lent is the time to prayerfully reflect and reflectively pray. And a very good time to attend Lenten Recollections.
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Realities: 1. Elena Frings, a young woman in her 20s, was informed by her doctor that her heart was so weak that she had only six months to live. She decided to leave her office job in Santiago, Chile, and work as a volunteer community organizer among the city’s slum-dwellers.
“That way I will die happy,” she said to a friend. Ms Frings worked so effectively that she was invited to New York to give talks about the programme. There, she met a surgeon who successfully operated on her defective heart.
Elena Frings is now back in South America, helping the poor who live on the margins of society. It was her expectation of death -not the operation – that gave new meaning and direction to her life.
If you were given six months to live, what effect would the news have on your life? The way each of us responds to that question is actually our answer to the question, “What is death?” (Christopher Notes, DEATH GIVES MEANING TO LIFE)
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2. In the days when the pioneers were making their way across the prairies in covered wagons, they were horrified one day to see a long line of smoke in the west, stretching for miles across the prairie, and coming at them rapidly. They had crossed a river the day before and could not get back to it before the names got to them.
One man knew what to do. He commanded that they set fire to the grass behind them. Then when a space burnt over, the whole company moved Back upon it. As the flames roared on toward them from the west, a little girl cried out in terror, “Are you sure we shall not all be burned up?”
The leader replied, “My child, the fire cannot reach us here, because we are standing where the fire has been.” (H. A. lronside, REDEMPTION)
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3. Filipino Catholics are people who have experienced in one way or another that our Filipino identity, meaning, suffering, commitment, and world-view are all tied up to Jesus Christ. Like a diamond with a thousand faces, Christ is able to reveal to every person and nation, their very own unity, truth and value. (Catechism for Filipino Catholics, no. 52).
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4. An old African folk tale talks about a land which was suffering from a famine. Men and beasts starved to death. Everyone worried about just staying alive.
In this country lived a pelican which did not worry about keeping itself alive as much as preserving the life of her young ones. Day after day she scrounged for food. But then the pelican could find no other way out, so in her great need she made a hole in her own breast with her beak and gave her young ones her own blood to drink. When the famine was over, her young ones were strong and able to fly away and look after themselves. She had given her lifeblood to make them that way. (Willi Hoffsuemmer, CHRIST, THE PELICAN)
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5. Pain is a danger signal from the body; it means something is wrong. It means: slow down, or check that out, or stop and think.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “God Whispers in our pleasure; He talks in our conscience; and He shouts in our pain.”
In times of good health we give ourselves credit for taking such good care of ourselves. So sometimes the Lord sends us pain to remind us of our dependency on Him.
The person who is always healthy is very intolerant of those who are not – through no fault of their own. He or she is also usually a very bad patient…and will probably die without knowing what hit him. (Frank Mihalic, PAIN)
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Direction: Give me grace to make every effort to supplement faith with moral courage, moral courage with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with patience, patience with piety, piety with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. May these virtues keep me both active and fruitful and bring me to the deep knowledge of you, Lord Jesus. (Prayer to Know Jesus, People’s Prayer Book, no. 692)