Homily: Palm Sunday ABC: Fr. Michael U. Udoekpo

Homily: Palm Sunday ABC: Fr. Michael U. Udoekpo

 Processional Readings ABC: Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-10 and Luke 19:28-40.

Christ’s Humble Entrance into Jerusalem,

Every year the Church celebrates Palm Sunday which ends the Lenten Season and marks the beginning of the most Holy week in our Christian Liturgy.  It is a week our savior will be exalted on the Cross. It is a week of that hour of glory come to fulfillment. This  is the week Christ, our Lord and Savior will be betrayed, falsely accused, plotted against (John 11:45-53), arrested (Matt 26:47-56), interrogated by Annas, Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin ( Matt 26:57-58), tried by Pilate ( Matt 27:1-14), denied by Peter (Matt 26:59-66), mocked and executed in a Roman way ( Matt 27:15-56).  It is a week Christ will draw all people to himself, Jews and the Gentiles, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea (John 12:32). It is a Holy and Salvific Week for us; a week of grace; a week of victory over death and injustice, lies and hatred; a week we see new life in the death of Christ. It is a teaching week for our religious communities, families and homes.

It is a week we also learn to resist evil not with violence, not by chopping off “Malchus’ ear,” but with prayer, endurance and through peaceful process of dialogue and reconciliation. A week we learn not to act like Pilate, remaining indifferent to truth nor being in a hurry to condemn our neighbors, brothers and sisters, friends and children. It is a week each of us is invited to the foot of the Cross, a week Mary will be handed over to us the faithful disciples of Christ (John 19:25ff). Our nations in unnecessary political divides can also learn from this week.

Usually before the principal Mass our palms which will be turned into ashes for “renewal” next year are blessed. A moment from now we shall reenact the Gospel story we have just heard from Matthew 21:1-11. Like those ordinary people, those pilgrims in the street of Jerusalem (those men, women and children) who gave Christ a royal welcome to Jerusalem for his paschal mystery we are also prepared in our pilgrimage  to embrace Christ with enthusiasm, to welcome him into our lives in the Eucharist we are about to celebrate today. Through the  “Hosanna” (Psalm 118:26; Mk 11:1-10 and Luke 19:28-40) we sing we shall be inviting Christ, Son of David, the King of Israel to “save” us, to come into our lives, into our homes, offices, parish communities and families.

Again from that Gospel (s) Reading (s), He is a humble King, a King of Peace, riding on a donkey instead of a horse. Remember at the time of David and Prophet Zechariah (cf 9:9) the donkey had been a sign of kingship, but later an animal for the poor, while the horses came to represent the might of the mighty. Christ today presents us the image of a King of peace arriving Jerusalem on a donkey not on a bullet and nuclear proof presidential Limousine.

With this we are reminded not only of Christ’s humility, his identification with the poor, but also his fearlessness, his prophetic courage to conquer death even death on a cross.

Let us now with enthusiasm go forth in peace, praising Jesus our Messiah, and welcoming him like the Jerusalem multitude!

 

 

Homily (at Mass) Palm Sunday Year ABC: Fr. Michael U. Udoekpo

Readings: Isa 50:4-7; Ps 22:8-9, 17-18,19-20,23-24; Phil 2: 6-11 and(A) Matt 26:14–27:66 (B) Mk 14:1–15:47 (C) and Luke 22: 14–23:56

The Victory of Christ’s Death

Today begins our Holy Week. As we saw at the beginning of this Mass, it is mark with the blessings of our palms and then we solemnly process into the Church, singing “Hossanna to the Son of David…! This ushers us into the most Holy Week of Christian Liturgy.

From the readings we have just shared particularly that long Gospel, the Passion narrative of Christ, this year from Luke- it is clear that center of our focus is Jesus, and what he teaches us this week. It is a week our savior will be exalted on the Cross. It is a week of that hour of glory come to fulfillment. This  is the week Christ, our Lord and Savior will be betrayed, falsely accused, plotted against (John 11:45-53), arrested (Matt 26:47-56), interrogated by Annas, Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin ( Matt 26:57-58), tried by Pilate ( Matt 27:1-14), denied by Peter (Matt 26:59-66), mocked and executed in a Roman way ( Matt 27:15-56).  It is a week Christ will draw all people to himself, Jews and the Gentiles, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea (John 12:32). It is a Holy and Salvific Week for us; a week of grace; a week of victory over death and injustice, lies and hatred; a week we see new life in the death of Christ. It is a teaching week for our religious communities, families and homes.

It is a week we also learn to resist evil not with violence, not by chopping off “Malchus’ ear,” but with prayer, endurance and through peaceful process of dialogue and reconciliation. A week we learn not to act like Pilate, remaining indifferent to truth nor being in a hurry to condemn our neighbors, brothers and sisters, friends and children. It is a week each of us is invited to the foot of the Cross, a week Mary will be handed over to us the faithful disciples of Christ (John 19:25ff). Even as a nation, parish and family, we can learn from Jesus this week, how to love, how to suffer and how to endure.

He is that same suffering Servant foreshadowed in that third song- Deutero- Isaiah (Isa 50:4-7), that first reading. The Lord God has given him, the servant, a well trained tongue that he might know how to speak to the weary, the weak, he poor and the powerless.. Sometimes we are weary, we are weak. How do we handle our weariness and weaknesses? 

The Suffering servant is a skilled counselor, because he himself has been trained by the Lord, how to endure and how to be humble, how to get up when you seem to be down. The suffering servant is a disciple, before anything else. He listens to the Lord, morning by morning. He does no rebel, like some Israelite in the desert. He does not say, “No I can’t make it to that cross, it is too rough”! He handles all the beatings, the insults and spiting with patience, wisdom and humility, “he gave his back and cheek to those who slapped and plucked his beard.”

He had every power to resist his arrest in the garden, but he did not. He taught Peter in the Malchus incidence to put back his sword, that violent was not necessary (Luke 22:50) - then. It is not necessary now. Rather, patience, wisdom, forgiveness, love, endurance and humility.

It is these same humble virtues of Christ that Saints emphasizes in the Second reading.

 “Christ Jesus though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, something to be grasped…he became obedient to death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-11).

I believe,  we all come here today because we do like Paul recognize this legacy of limitless love Christ handed to us. Through out the whole world, in Rome with our new Pope, Francis Thousands of people, men, women, seniors and children, attorneys and physicians, philosophers and theologians, factory workers and business men and women of diverse cultural and political background., have all gathered to commemorate this mystery of Christ’s events. It reminds us of those women at foot of the Cross, the Beloved Disciples? What about the Gentile Roman Soldiers and other Jews like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea  who went asking for the body of Jesus for a kingly anointing and speedy royal burial in a new tomb that had been hewn in a rock (Matt 27:57-61; Mk 15:42-47; Lk 23:50-56 and John 19:38-42).  The tomb was never going to be the final destination of Christ. It all comes to fulfill the victory of the cross and what Christ had said that, when he will be lifted up on the cross he will draw everyone to himself (John 3:14; 8:28 and 12:31-32).

As we walk through this Holy Week may we see it as a Holy and a Saving Week; a Week of grace of victory of life over death? Let us not only focus on the weaknesses of Judas, Peter, Pilate and other disciples who betrayed, denied and  fled the suffering and the trial scenes of Christ. But with God’s grace we want to imitate the teaching endurance of the Kingly Christ, a King of Peace and Love with the faithful examples of those women, men, the Beloved Disciples at the foot of the Cross, by uniting our sufferings, our illnesses, our setbacks, the mockeries we experience in life with the Exalted Cross of Christ and with the victory of the Resurrection.