https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032424.cfm
Palm Sunday.
We are once again at the start of the Holy Week. Lent is drawing to a close and Easter, with all its significance and reassurances is round the corner.
The readings are all great, engaging and gripping. The first one describes the triumphant entry to Jerusalem! In modern day terms, we have before us a State visit – ecstatic crowds, jubilant masses and all symbols of joy at the visit are there – access road covered with signs and effigies of genuine rejoicing and fellowship over the visit. Then something hits us – a King riding in on a donkey (why not a horse) – there is a clash in the grandeur of the visitor and the deliberate simplicity of the chosen means of conveyance. This is a jolt to our traditional image metaphors, a subversion and a challenge.
Then there are the dialogues that reveal Christ’s omniscience and omnipotence – He sees what will happen, and they happen as He described. He speaks what will happen and they happen as he spoke!
Then the readings from Isaiah – full of power, elegance, prediction and prescience (they split my tunic), obedience and the long suffering servant – obedience and humility tumble on one another – the obedient servant is rewarded, portending Christ’s own reward; the responsorial psalm and the cry of abandonment, St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, an expose on Christ’s simplicity and humility and the rewards that flow from those twin virtues, and then the passion according to St Mark. Easter is round the corner. You can smell it.
Great readings. They carry important messages – the power of sacrifice, true love involves sacrifice, the importance of humility, the fidelity of God, the rewards of obedience and the presentation of a new type of grandeur that is grounded on simplicity and which flees our current display of affluence and presidential/governorship convoys of usually more than Fifty SUVs! Power should never be confused with the display of affluence and material artefacts. But is anyone listening? Happy Palm Sunday l.
Reflections 