PALM SUNDAY – CYCLE A – 2020
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With Palm Sunday we begin Holy Week in which
we will celebrate the great mysteries of our faith and of our redemption
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The week begins on Palm Sunday and will end
on Easter Vigil.
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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.
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Because these faith-anchoring events are
historical they cannot be repeated or
“reenacted”
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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.
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These holy days celebrate God’s taking
possession of our hearts at their
deepest core,
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Recreating us as a new human community broken
like the bread for the world’s life
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Community rich in compassion, steadfast in
hope, and fearless in the search for justice and peace.
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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.
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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 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
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