Palm Sunday
A reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the
Philipians (2, 5-11)
Let the same mind be in you that was in
Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did
not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a
slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled
himself
and became obedient to the point of death— even
death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every
name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
This is the Word of the Lord
Today the Church celebrates Palm Sunday, and today’s liturgy points
to the mystery we will be celebrating throughout the following week and which
finds its highest point in the Celebration of Easter. Today, palms which were
used by all nations as a sign of joy and victory, and which the Church has also
adapted as a symbol for martyrs, are blessed and carried in procession as a
sort of re-enactment of Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
However, our
liturgy is not just a remembrance of past events. Liturgy is relevant because
it helps us live our present life to the full (Jn 10, 10) for Jesus said: “This
bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (Jn 6, 51).
Liturgy is relevant because it helps us to focus on our hope of receiving life everlasting,
for Jesus said: “My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and
believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last
day (Jn 6, 40).
Because of
this, today we will be repeating the antiphon “Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord” with the accompanying “Hosannas” not because the joyful crowd
chanted these verses as it followed Jesus into Jerusalem about two thousand
years ago. We sing this verse from Psalm 118, and we sing it with all our heart,
because we will be accompanying Jesus as with him, all along this coming week,
we will be celebrating God’s great love for us witnessed through the
institution of the Holy Eucharist, through Christ’s passion and death and
through his resurrection.
We want to sing
with joy for today and each day of our life Jesus comes to us in the name of
the Lord in order to strengthen our faith, revamp our hope and fulfil our love
in his eternal love. He comes to us each day, “until he comes again” so that we
who believe in him and desire him will be with him, for Jesus said: “Father, I
desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to
see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the
foundation of the world” and “I ask not only on behalf of these (apostles), but
also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word” (Jn 17, 24
and 20).
Today’s reading
from St. Paul is both an invitation for us to have the same mind that was in
Christ Jesus, and also a beautiful picture of what we will be celebrating
during this coming week, for Jesus, truly God, “did not regard equality with
God as something to be exploited”. In
fact he took on himself our humanity with all its limitations and entered our
history in a given time and place. “He humbled himself and became obedient to
the point of death – even death on a cross”, an unjust death machinated by
authorities, religious and political, who weren’t at all happy with what he was
teaching and doing for the crowds that were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt
9, 36).
Christ’s
enemies did not prevail for “God also highly exalted him and gave him the name
that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2, 9-11).
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