Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord: No Greater Love, Mt 26:14 27:66

04-02-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Bing Colasito

Passion Sunday signals the start of Holy Week, a memorable week. If we journey with our Lord Jesus this whole week, it will be an experience of a week to remember. This week, we WALK our TALK. This means trying to show the fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Generosity, Fruitfulness, Gentleness, Kindness, and, and Self- Control. Let us try to live what it means to be human.

Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem, knowing full well His impending passion. He instructs His disciples to look for a specific animal and fulfills a prophecy in Zech. 9:9, one day, the Messiah would enter the city of David riding on a donkey: Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. The picture reminds us of the humble birth of our Lord, the baby Jesus, born in a simple stable and on a manger. A Messiah King crowned with thorns, a picture of paradox: Power becomes powerless; a LOVE hated, a LIFE crucified.

To be human is to be vulnerable: experience rejection, betrayal, injury, insults, abandonment, thirst, anger, and hunger. To be human is to experience the darkness of the passion, death, and triumph of the resurrection. To be human means to be loved, hated, joyful, sorrowful, giving, selfish, faithless, faithful, mean, gentle, harsh, selfcontrol, and out of control. To be human is to be the sign of the cross, the sign of contradiction. But also, to be human is to be like our Lord Jesus Christ, both human and DIVINE.

We thank God for making us human, for making His home in a human house and our world the home of His Son nd making a home in the HUMAN flesh and blood. By making our home your home: Tu casa es Mi casa, you make your home in us. How often have I received you in the Eucharist, and how have I become aware that your Spirit is alive and bearing fruit in me? For all these, I thank you, Lord Jesus.

Lord, be our guide this entire week. Let me experience a humble entry to Jerusalem, the last meal with your disciples, your agony at Gethsemane, suffering and death, your three days in the tomb, and especially, the glory of your resurrection. Enlighten my heart and mind to understand the meaning of the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion and Death, and the Glorious Resurrection. Lord, teach me how to love and forgive: when Judas betrayed you, Peter denied knowing you, Pilate and the mob chose Barabbas over you, one of the criminals mocked you on the cross, and when the soldiers crucified you.

Lord, what a week to remember. This Holy Week, send the Holy Spirit into our hearts; so that we may reflect and understand all the things you will teach us. Because without the grace of understanding, we will never comprehend the meaning of your passion, death, and resurrection. Love, according to God’s essence of it is Self Gift; God is LOVE that
love is not love until you give it away. Love one an‐
other as I love you. No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (Jn. 15:12,13)