Prepared

Homily for Palm Sunday

By Deacon Thomas Stephenson

April 09, 2017

Today we mark the beginning of the most sacred, and most important, week of the year. In various ways, we have been preparing ourselves for this week, and especially for Easter, since Ash Wednesday. The events we just heard recounted in the Gospel happened almost 2,000 years ago, yet they still profoundly affect our lives now, and our eternal salvation. The Gospel we heard today comes from Matthew; on Good Friday, we’ll hear John’s account of Christ’s Passion. As Father Paul mentioned during Lent, the Gospel passages seemed to get longer and longer each Sunday, and the Passion today is longer than any of them. Yet, even though it is long, and even though we have heard it many times, we should be riveted by what we hear. The Passion accounts should help us to understand what our Lord and Saviour did for us, the depth of His love for us.

At the beginning of today’s Mass, we heard another, shorter Gospel, about Jesus being welcomed to Jerusalem by a large crowd. These people laid their cloaks and palm branches on the road in front of Jesus, and shouted “Hosanna!”, called Him Son of David, one who comes in the name of the Lord, and a prophet. If we were listening carefully to Father’s words before the blessing of the palms – and I’m sure we all were paying strict attention – we heard him say that “…since the beginning of Lent until now, we have prepared our hearts by penance and charitable works”. We have had opportunities to observe Lent as a community, with the Stations of the Cross each Friday, our Lenten mission with Father Martin, and the Lenten Penance Service. We have also made our personal sacrifices, and other efforts, to help us grow spiritually. Father Paul encouraged us to make this our best Lent ever; now we can look back and see how successful we were. We can ask ourselves: How much did my actions during Lent help me to become closer to God? How much did they open my heart to allow the Lord to guide me more? How much better is my prayer life, how much have I grown in holiness? Regardless of how we answer, we should remember that our increased attention to our faith should continue even after Lent. Lent may have been the initial motivation for us to renew our relationship with the Lord, but once Lent is over we should not begin to revert to where we were before Ash Wednesday. Now that we have maintained this focus for a few weeks, it should be easier for us to keep going. If we didn’t quite get to where we wanted to be during Lent, we don’t need to wait until next Lent to keep trying. This isn’t a one time, temporary thing. As Bishop Sheen said about becoming holy, “…sanctification is not a place at which one arrives but a way one travels”.

The crowds that welcomed Jesus were joyous, celebrating the arrival of the one they thought could be the Messiah. The Apostles, too, must have been quite happy, observing Passover with Jesus. Neither the Apostles nor the people in the crowd could have imagined what would happen, but Jesus knew. He knew, not only that He would suffer, but that most of His closest followers would abandon Him, that Judas would betray Him, and that Peter would deny Him. They went from joy to despair and fear. Jesus had told them, and tried to prepare them for, what was going to happen to Him. And He knows, and tells them, that their faith will be shaken. But they are unable to fully grasp what He was saying. Ultimately, their faith was shaken, but not shattered. We cannot betray the Lord the way Judas did, and we probably would not deny even knowing the Lord like Peter did. And we must never abandon Him; we must not run away from Him in difficult times, for it is then that we need to be with Him, and He wants to be with us. We can cope with our challenges best when we cooperate with God’s will. And no matter what happens, our faith must remain unshaken.

Hopefully, we have had, if not the best, at least a very good Lent, and have prepared ourselves well for the next week. Let us pray that we will have a great Holy Week and Easter Triduum, and that the sacrifices begun in Lent will continue to help us to grow in holiness throughout the year.