PALM SUNDAY – CYCLE A – 2020

« With Palm Sunday we begin Holy Week in which we will celebrate the great mysteries of our faith and  of our redemption 

« The week begins on Palm Sunday and will end on Easter Vigil. 

« The last three days of the week are the Easter Triduum : The last Supper of the Lord, the Death of the Lord and the Easter Vigil which anticipates the glory of the resurrection. 

« Because these faith-anchoring events are historical  they cannot be repeated or “reenacted”

« That is why the church’s long tradition insists that what happened once in history passes over into the mystery of the assembly’s liturgical and sacramental celebrations.  

« These holy days celebrate God’s taking possession of our hearts  at their deepest core, 

« Recreating us as a new human community broken like the bread for the world’s life 

« Community rich in compassion, steadfast in hope, and fearless in the search for justice and peace.

« The readings and the celebration of this Sunday can give strength and hope in the difficult times the whole humanity is immersed.   Time in which we see how many of our brothers and sisters all over the planet are suffering, die, suffer loneliness.   May our hearts and our prayers accompany them as well as the health care community.  

« It is also a time of light, enlightened by the good works and diverse initiatives that the people do in different parts of the world in order to cheer up, alleviate and raise the spirit.  

FIRST READING  – Is 50:4-7

This passage from the prophet Isaiah is part of a series of 4 poems called the Poems of the Servant of Yahweh:   Is 42:1-9; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12.

§  This servant can be: 

o   The faithful portion of the people of Israel, called to an especial mission. 

o   The prophet himself

o   In the Christian tradition Jesus is considered to be this faithful servant of God, the Father.

§  Sometimes the description of the servant has so many details that it seems that  they describe Christ’s sufferings and glory 

§  However the prophet does not know Jesus, but since the word of God has different levels of understanding, over the centuries the reflection and meditation of the Church has discovered that these oracles speak of Jesus. 

§  On the second poem of the Servant 

o   The Servant has been given a well-trained tongue that he might know how to speak 

o   Morning after morning his ears are opened   that he may hear. With his tongue he will speak what he hears.  

o   He accepts his mission even being difficult   

o   Because he knows that he will not be put to shame, Yahweh is his teacher. 

RESPONSORIAL PSALM Ps 22

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

All who see me scoff at me

They mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads:

“He relied on the Lord; let him deliver him,

Let him rescue him, if the loves him.

Indeed many dogs surround me

A pack of evildoers closes in upon me

They have pierced my hands and my feet

I can count all my bones

They divided my garments among them

And for my vesture they cast lots

But you O Lord, be not far from me

O my help, haste to aid me.

I will proclaim your name to my brethren

In the midst of the assembly I will praise you

“You who fear the Lord praise him

All you descendants of Jacob give glory to him;

Revere him, all you descendants of Israel.”

ü  The first stanzas of this psalm describe the suffering, humiliation and abuse suffered by the faithful servant.

ü  Also his suffering,  feeling his God far away from him, feeling abandoned by him.

ü  The last stanza speaks of light, joy, new life, we could say resurrection. 

 SECOND READING  – Phil 2:6-11

Paul invites his community of Philippi, and he invites us too now, to have the same attitude as Christ Jesus 

     Being in the form of God and equal to God 

     He emptied himself, in the incarnation, to be one like us, in everything except sin. 

     By the incarnation he took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of man.

     Those who saw him, saw a vulnerable, limited, humble and simple man, full of love and tenderness always welcoming every one. 

     He was obedient as Isaiah’s servant, accepting death and death on a cross. 

     He knew that he would not be put to shame because his trust is in Yahweh,  Jesus

o   Has been exalted because he humbled himself, being obedient to the Father  

o   Thus he has received a name above every other name, He is the Lord 

o   The first communities proclaimed “Jesus is Lord“ and  everything that the Old Testament had said about Yahweh is now applied to Jesus who is our Lord and God

o   Because he is God every knee bends   in adoration before him. 

READING OF THE PASSION ACCORDING TO MATTHEW  – 26,14-27,66. 

There are several scenes in this Gospel 

1.     THE LAST SUPPER, before and during the meal

a.     Before:

                                                    i.      Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ disciples, makes a deal with the Jewish authorities to hand Jesus over to them. 

                                                  ii.     Before Judas goes to the authorities, the Gospel tells us that a woman buys a very expensive perfume to anoint Jesus, and Judas considers that this money could have been used to buy food for the poor. 

                                                 iii.     The disciples prepare the room for the Passover meal 

b.     During the supper  

                                                    i.     Jesus sits at table with them 

                                                  ii.     During the Passover meal, which is the celebration of the liberation from Egypt and the Covenant on Mount Sinai, Jesus institutes the Eucharist of his body and blood.    

                                                 iii.     He transforms  the paschal lamb meal in the Eucharistic meal of the true lamb. He does sacramentally  what he will do on the next day, when he will give his life on the cross for us, for our love. 

                                                 iv.     He institutes also the New Covenant which will substitute the Old Covenant made on Mount Sinai. 

c.      In the garden of Gethsemane

                                                    i.     Jesus prays, feels sorrow and distress. 

                                                  ii.     He asks his disciples to be awaken to stay with him because his heart is broken. These are the same disciples who were witnesses of the transfiguration. 

                                                 iii.     He also prays the Father, if it is possible to take away this suffering from him, but the answer from the disciples and also apparently from the Father is silence.  

                                                 iv.     But in some way the Father has answer his prayer and given him strength because he has the energy to meet his friend. 

                                                   v.     Judas leads the group that comes to take him. 

d.     The Religious and Civil  Trials  

                                                    i.     He is taken in front of the Jewish authorities, who look for a reason to condemn him. This humble and simple man is a threat for them. Too many people are following him.

                                                  ii.     He is condemned as blasphemer because he makes himself son of God 

                                                 iii.     They insult and enjoy themselves torturing him. 

                                                 iv.     The trial before the Roman authority, Pilate. He tries by all means to absolve him, but overcome by fear to lose his political position, he sets free a criminal and condemns the author of life and of our salvation. 

e.     His two disciples Peter and Judas 

                                                    i.     While He is interrogated and mistreated by the authorities, Peter, who had said at the last supper that he was ready to  die with Jesus, fears now when a woman accuses him to be one of the followers of Jesus and denies even to know him. 

                                                  ii.     Judas the other disciple, who has never been able to really know the goodness and forgiveness of his teacher, hangs himself out of desperation realizing what he has done led by his ambition. 

f.       The way to Golgotha

                                                    i.     They stripped him of the cloak and dressed him in his own clothes. 

                                                  ii.     They put on his shoulder the cross, instrument of torture and death

                                                 iii.     They press a man from Cyrene to carry the cross for Jesus. Jesus is too weak to be able to carry his cross up to Golgotha. He would have probably died before reaching the place, but the authorities wanted  to kill him on the cross between his companions two criminals. 

1.     Maybe we can imagine the experience of Simon of Cyrene. 

2.     In the movie The Passion, the man from Cyrene goes   through a process of conversion. At the beginning he is reluctant and does not want to carry the cross, but as he walks with that man who does not complain and answers with love to all these mistreatments.  He has not done anything bad.

3.     Certainly Jesus has not done anything wrong, he has taken our place. 

g.      The Death of Jesus  

                                                    i.     After a long agony  Jesus cried out in a loud voice and gave up his spirit.  

                                                  ii.     To give the spirit may simply mean, he died. 

                                                 iii.     But it may also signify that Jesus gives us his spirit. John also uses the same words as Matthew to indicate Jesus’ death and meaning that he gives us the Holy Spirit.  

                                                 iv.     In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus dies alone, some women are looking from a distance,  they are: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.    

                                                   v.     To help us to understand the horror of this death, Matthews says that the dead rise from their tombs, the earth is shaken by an earthquake; the sun becomes dark as when it is night. Whenever there is a theophany nature is shaken. We have been able to kill the author of our life, the Creator. In paradise Eve and Adam wanted to be like gods, on Calvary the human race wants to eliminate God to take its place. 

                                                 vi.     At the death of Jesus, the soldiers who are pagans, in contemplating what is happening and the way he has died acknowledge that Jesus was the Son of God. 

                                               vii.     Many of our brothers and sisters die alone, as Jesus on the cross. They are also crucified by COVID 19. We will never know how many beautiful stories of love between each one of them and their Creator. This virus is helping us to rediscover and discover the beauty of love, self-giving, smiling, helping, promoting harmony and peace, give joy to the suffering.

                                              viii.     From the cross, instrument of humiliation and death came the resurrection. From the sickness and death produced by COVID 19 life will flourish again renewed and appreciated, more be