Palm SUNDAY 16th of April 2000

First: Is 50:4-7; Second: Ph 2:6-11 Gospel: Mk 14:1-15:47

THEME of the READINGS

The fact that a man suffers is a difficult one for us. Whether he suffers deliberately or because of another, it is not easy to fit him into our common categories. Today’s liturgy presents to us the deliberate suffering of Jesus Christ. "...[A]nd being in every way like a human being, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross" (second reading). On Jesus’ lips we have heard, "Abba, Father!" He said, "For you everything is possible. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it" (Gospel). Centuries before, the servant of Yahweh, the figure of Jesus Christ, had prophetically uttered the following words, "Lord Yahweh has opened my ear and I have not resisted, I have not turned away. I have offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; I have not turned my face away from insult and spitting" (first reading). 

DOCTrinal MESSAGE

The realism of the Passion of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Saint Mark is the one of the greatest realism and even a certain degree of harshness in the narration Jesus’ Passion. The prophecy of the Servant of Yahweh was short, though its expressions are striking when one listens to them: he was struck on the back, made fun of and had his beard plucked, he suffered insults and spitting. Jesus goes through and experiences a physical passion, which shakes up his entire body, and a moral passion, a passion of the heart, which shakes and almost paralyzes his soul. In Gethsemane Jesus suffers from terror, anguish, deadly sadness, and is taken violently by the men who go up to him with swords and clubs (14:33-34.46). In the Sanhedrin, after he was judged blasphemous, some began to spit on him and strike him (14:65). In the Praetorium, the Roman soldiers twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on him (15:17). They also struck his head with a reed, spat on him, and went down on their knees to pay him homage (15:19). Mark plainly writes, "Then they crucified him" (15:24). The evangelist ends the account by saying, "But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last" (15:37). A cry of pain, a cry in which he sums up all of his Passion. Alongside the corporal passion is the passion of the heart. How do his disciples behave? Judas betrays him (14:10). Peter disowns him (14:66.72), all of the disciples abandon him and flee (14:50). How do the authorities behave? The authorities were looking for a way to arrest him by some trick and have him put to death (14:1). They pay Judas to betray his Master (14:11). They sent a number of armed men to take Jesus away (14:43), looked for evidence against him in order to have him executed (14:55), condemn him for blasphemy (14:63-64), incite the crowd to demand that Pilate should release Barabbas and put Jesus on the cross instead (15:11-13). On Golgotha, triumphant, they mock him (15:31-32). He, the innocent one, is tried and condemned. He, the Lord, is struck by a servant, insulted by the soldiers. He is the object of people’s mockery and scorn. And especially he, the Son of God, feels deeply inside himself that the Father has forsaken him (15:34). This realism of the Passion takes on a special, unprecedented brightness if we observe it with the certainty that Jesus could have avoided it but did not want to. He took on all the pain of the Passion deliberately, fully exercising his freedom, as the supreme expression of his freedom subjected to his love for his Father and his brothers.

The fruits of suffering. The first fruit to be borne is Jesus’ humanity: "And for this God raised him high, and gave him the name which is above all other names" (second reading). In other words, his humanity came back to life, to a new life, and the Father glorified his humanity by making it participate in God’s very life. The second fruit that the texts indicate to us is the salvation obtained through the love that suffers even the heroism of death on a cross. This suffering love saves the thief that begs for mercy; this love culminates in a striking cry and saves the centurion who recognizes the Son of God in the crucified man. Jesus’ suffering saved Peter who, right after disowning him, burst into tears like a child. Peter, the centurion and the good thief are symbols of humanity that, in spite of everything, is touched by Christ the savior.

PASTORal SUGGESTIONS

An "accompanied loneliness". In contemporary society many people live lonely lives and feel the loneliness like a heavy stone weighing upon them: the elderly who feel lonely, perhaps abandoned by their own families, orphans and children abandoned by their parents on the doorstep of a hospital or at the entrance of a church, beggars who do not have a family or a roof over their heads, young people who live "alone" and often experience with anguish the first problems of their existence, such as the lack of meaning, joblessness, anxiety for the future, the fleeting and deceitful escape provided by drugs, sex, alcohol... Then there is the loneliness of immigrants, uprooted from their cultural traditions, their country and family, and often mistreated. These people are on their own, but not out of their own free will. These, and all others who live in our environment, must find in Christians good and sincere company, a fraternal welcome, effective help, an open and even controversial solidarity, a truly heartfelt compassion. These people who are compelled to be on their own should also know that Jesus Christ walks with them in their loneliness and in a certain way experiences and shares loneliness with them. Not only that; Christ also takes up and redeems their loneliness with the loneliness he himself suffered during his Passion and death on the Cross. In his atrocious loneliness, Christ knew that the Father was mysteriously by his side. So was his mother Mary and the holy women... In the midst of the most merciless loneliness, people need to know that someone is next to them and prays for them, that there is Someone by their side.

Trust in pain. This is one of the most wonderful teachings that Jesus Christ leaves us with, like a flag atop Golgotha. No one has suffered like Jesus and no one has had as much trust as Jesus in the midst of cruel and merciless suffering. To those who believe, pain does not erase their trust. When you are in pain, how do you react? With anger against society, against your fate, against God himself? With weakness, to the point of being tempted by suicide or euthanasia? With stoic resignation in the face of the inevitable? Or with a trust that is mature, great, full of faith, bright before the future? Tell me how you suffer and I will tell you who you are. May Jesus’ attitude of trust in his heavenly Father and in the future enlighten us Christians.

Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOB.html by P. ANTONIO IZQUIERDO L.C. (1948-2013)

[참고: 이 파일은 저서명 "가톨릭 교회의 말씀 전례에 따른 성경공부 해설서"(엮은이: 소순태, 출판사: 가톨릭출판사)의 각주의 연장으로 마련되었습니다].