PALM SUNDAY, B

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HIS PASSION, OUR PASSIONS



This Palm Sunday of the Lord’s  Passion is a very meaningful start of Holy Week. Many times as Catholics, we are distracted by the many events of this dramatic week. We are preoccupied with the palms we bring and wave around for blessing. We are awed by the processions and the rituals in the church. We are swallowed up by the so many expressions of piety at home and in the neighborhood.

But the real essence of Holy Week, the real meaning of Palm Sunday is not outside of us.  It is something within us. The Passion of Jesus is our passion too. In fact, Jesus had to go through the passion because he wanted to embrace the passion he saw his brothers and sisters were undergoing each day.

The true significance of Passion Sunday is our own passion linked to the Lord’s Passion. We see Jesus carrying the cross, crucified on the wood, and dying on the cross. And yet, Jesus looks at us and sees much the same thing is happening to us. Jesus offered his passion to the Father for us. We are invited to offer our own passion to the Father through Jesus who carries it with us.

What is your passion today? We have carried the cross for a long time as we try to survive a difficult relationship. We know the bitterness of the betrayal of a trusted friend or neighbor. Our tears fall each night as we languish in isolation and loneliness. Our bodies ache all over due to the sickness that wouldn’t go away or due to the hardship of physical labor. Our souls are tearing because of our guilt, our addictions, and our fears about the past and about the future. Young and old, men and women, we have all of us, our passion. This, more than palms, are what we need to wave around as Jesus passes by so that he might be bestow on us his blessing.

As Christians we believe that one day our passion will be turned into Resurrection. We are prisoners of hope because we are not slaves of disappointment, resignation, and despair. God is powerful and in his time, in his goodness, he will transfrom the cross into victory for us.

Let us start this holy week filled with hope in the power of the Cross.

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