PALM SUNDAY – CYCLE C  2019

Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, the holiest week of the year, which will lead us to the glory and joy of Easter Sunday. During this week Jesus will live his paschal mystery, his Passover from this world to the Father, from humiliation to glory,

In the first reading on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday, we read from the Book of Isaiah two of the Servant Poems.

THE SERVANT POEMS

In the book of the Second or Deutero-Isaiah we find a series of Poems about a Servant.

1.      42,1-4

2.      49,1-7

3.      50,4-11

4.      52,13-53,12

Many identifications have been proposed for this Servant:

-          Historical Israel

-          Ideal Israel

-          An Old Testament historical character, maybe the Prophet itself

-          In the New Testament the Church has seen in Jesus the fulfillment of what is said about the Servant.

The words used hear and speak, refer to the prophetic mission of the Servant.

First Reading Is 50,4-11.  

Third Poem of the Servant

-          He hears because the Lord has open his ears

-          And has given him a well-trained tongue to speak to the weary

-          The servant is obedient, does not refuse to accomplish his mission

-          He endures whatever comes to his life because of his willingness to obey God

-          His trust is in the Lord

o   God is his help

o   God is near and upholds his right

-          The Servant invites those who fear the Lord to

o   Listen to the voice of the Servant

o   To put their trust in God

o   Those who do not follow the Lord will suffer.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24

R.  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 he loves him.”

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

R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
They divide my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
But you, O LORD, be not far from me;
O my help, hasten to aid me.

R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned 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!”
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

«  This psalm is a lamentation

«  Of someone close to his death

«  God, who in former times was experienced as close, is now experienced as faraway. 

«  In the last verses the situation changes, because God intervenes and this gives way to joy, praise and thanksgiving

SECOND READING   Phl 2:6-11

      Paul invites the community of Philippi to have the same attitude of Christ  

      Christ

o   Who is God, contrary to what Adam who was not God did,  did not regard equality with God  something to be grasped at,   but takes on the form of a slave (the Word’s incarnation) 

o   Slave because every man is a slave before God, God is our Master and Lord, and even if we consider ourselves important, we are only slaves, and to become like us the Word had to humiliate himself. 

o   However, God does not look at us as slaves, but as adopted sons in his only son Jesus.

o   The Word made flesh, obeyed, the opposite to what Adam the first man did. Jesus became obedient; he opened his ears and opened his mouth to proclaim his acceptance of the Father’s will.     

o   He accepted the most humiliating death, the cross.   

o   The consequence of all of this is that the Father has glorified him, giving him a name above every other other name, an  absolute authority, thus everything is submitted to him because JESUS IS LORD FOR THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER.  

o   Wonderful fragment of the letter of Paul to the Philippians, in this letter Paul presents Christ Jesus, as true God and at the same time as true man. This is the belief we profess in the creed.   

PASSION OF THE LORD ACCORDING TO LUKE

-          The Lucan passion narrative is read in the same liturgical year C in which the Gospel of Luke has supplied the readings on Sundays of the Ordinary time. During Easter, we will read from the Acts of the Apostles, the other half of the Lucan two-volume work. The total setting is necessary to understand the passion message:

o   The Jesus accused before Pilate by the chief priests of “perverting the nation” is one whose infancy and upbringing was totally in fidelity to the Law of Moses (2:22, 27,39,42)

o   The Jesus who is accused of forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar” is the Jesus who had declared concerning the tribute “Give to Caesar… 20:25)

o   This casts light on the declaration of some characters in the passion, that Jesus is innocent  23:4,14,22,41,47)

o   The Jesus who calmly faces death is the one who had already set face to go to Jerusalem (9:51)

o   Affirming that no prophet should perish away from Jerusalem (13:33)

o   During his ministry Jesus showed tenderness, forgiveness, compassion (widow of Nain, the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, in his passion he shows forgiveness for those who crucified him

o   We read in the temptations that the devil left until the opportune time, the time is now (22:53)

o   He has always presented the disciples in a very delicate way, never mentions now in the passion that they abandoned the Lord.

o   Luke is the only evangelist who presents a post-resurrection picture where all the appearances of Jesus are in the Jerusalem area, as if the disciples had never fled back to Galilee.

o   The Jesus accused before the chief priest , the Roman Governor and the Herodian king prepares the way for  a Paul brought before the same cast of adversaries (Acts 21:27-25:27)

o   The innocent Jesus who dies asking forgiveness for his enemies and commending his soul to God the Father prepares the way for the first Christian martyr Stephen (Acts 7:59-60)  

CLARETIAN CORNER

 One night while praying and in bitter tears, pleading to our Lord that by the merits of His Passion and death to have mercy on the necessities of His church which at that time were many, our Lord told me and pointing at Mgr. Claret as if I saw him between our Lord and me.” This, my daughter, is the apostolic person whom you have asked me for so many years and with so much tears”.

His Divine Majesty showed me the grace He poured on that holy soul for the preaching of the gospel, and our Lord told me that there was no other remedy for the peace of the church. I did not know that person. Only a few days before I heard that a   certain chaplain by the name of Monsen Claret began preaching with much zeal about the honor due to God and the salvation of souls. It seems to me that have been at least eleven or twelve years ago. Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 19.  

If a son had a very kind father and saw that he was being maltreated for no reason at all, wouldn't the son defend the father? If the son saw that this good father was being led to execution, wouldn't he do all that he could to set him free? Well, then, what should I be doing for the honor of my Father, who is offended with such indifference and who, though innocent, is being led to Calvary to be, as St. Paul says, crucified anew by sin? Wouldn't it be a crime to remain silent? What would be the sense of not doing everything we could? My God, my Father! Help me to prevent all sins, or at least one sin, even if I should be cut to pieces in the attempt. Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 17.