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25 mar 2018

25/03/2018   Palm Sunday - B

25/03/2018   Palm Sunday - B

Mark 11,1-10

Reading 1, Isaiah 50,4-7 * Psalm 21 * Reading 2, Philippians 2,6-11 * Gospel, Mark 14,1- 15,47

This Sunday introduces us the most significant week for us Christians, the Holy Week, that ends in the Paschal Triduum! While in it, let us try to live almost hour after hour alongside Jesus, inside His heart, because we are and we want to be live parts of His Body! Let us begin then today’s celebration reliving the joy that, after their long pilgrimage, He and His disciples experienced in entering Jerusalem.

It has always been a huge joy to arrive within sight of the Holy City, and to climb the streets and the staircases leading to the big clearing of the Temple. Jesus wanted to live this moment exactly like the prophets had described it. The prophet Zechariah talks about a humble king who is coming riding a colt, the foal of a donkey! Jesus sends two disciples to fetch exactly a colt, never ridden before, and therefore suitable for a sacred use! He straddles it solemnly, like a king, and the disciples, like it was the custom in case of victorious leaders, spread cloaks and shake greenery! Then they shout out the verse of the Psalm: Blessed is he who is coming… they recognize Jesus as the Messiah, entering His city and the temple built for His glory!

Today we hold in our hand the branch of olive or palm as well and we raise it up while singing our Hosanna! We are among those disciples too, walking joyfully on the road leading to the Mount of Olives, getting down the valley of Cedron and climbing up again to enter the temple. Today we give Jesus joy as well! And He cheers us up! When we give testimony to the Lord, the joy of the heart and the strength of the life grow!

Today we need joy and strength to start the journey that Jesus is following and that will end on the Calvary. Today’s readings of the Mass, after singing the Hosanna, open us to the mystery of the suffering which Jesus is heading for. His suffering is really a mystery, that is to say that it is part of the loving will of the God of life, who loves men!

Behold, Isaiah introduces to us the Servant of Yahweh, alert to obey God’s will, sure of His help in the sufferings coming from men, to whom he is given, those discouraged men that he wants to console and help with His word. The Psalm continues then with the description of the sufferings and shows again the trust of Jesus in the Father and His will to reach everybody with the word of the good news!

Saint Paul, in the passage from the letter to the Philippians, helps us to see Jesus as the obedient servant, so humble to give back His royal and divine dignity! However, God is not indifferent to this love of the Son, and He raises Him high, He gives Him a name so great that it attracts the adoration of all creatures and the praise of every tongue! In this way the apostle gives interpretation to the events of the passion and resurrection and helps us then to look at them through God’s eye!

The reading of the passion according to Mark begins with the act of selfless love of a woman, who breaks the alabaster jar in order to pour the ointment on Jesus’ head. The following discussion shows the continuous contradiction in which the Church lives. It is it, the Church, to be represented by that woman! It is opposed and contradicted right when it loves its Lord in a direct and beautiful way, when it “wastes” time for Him, when it spends energies in order to announce His word, when it stops for praising Him and listening to Him!

I want to be part of this Church, I want to give all my love to Jesus. I am sure that the poor will not complain, on the contrary! The poor are actually those who are happy to see me and the Church, all busy loving Jesus! This is the only love to give strength enough to follow the Lord in the garden and on the Calvary. It is not a chance that only the women were below the cross! If we keep reading the story from the Gospel we will let the love for Jesus to be born and to grow inside us, the love that Simon of Cyrene did not have, compelled to carry the cross. We will let also grow inside us the faith, the one that made the Centurion say: “In truth this man was Son of God”!

This entire week we will remain enshrouded by this faith and this love!