Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
There
has been much talk recently about the humility of Pope Francis. Some of the people I know have been a
bit offended, taking the emphasis on Pope Francis’ humility as a comment on an
alleged lack of humility by Benedict XVI, our Pope Emeritus. Personally, I don’t see it as an attack
on Pope Emeritus Benedict, who was himself very humble (and I can say that as a
personal witness of his humility when I met him in Rome). Others have rightly seen the humility
of Francis as a means of evangelization.
There is something about Pope Francis which preaches the Gospel even in
the way he acts, which is very reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi and St.
Dominic.
I
have preached on humility before, but this time I want to focus on humility as
the acceptance of wherever God leads us.
True humility means accepting the path that God has chosen for us, even
when that path runs through suffering and death. St. Paul talks about the humility of Jesus, “taking the form
of a slave…and found human in appearance,…becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross.”
Jesus, as we heard in our Gospel, was open to accepting the Father’s
will.
He
accepted the Father’s will when he entered in triumph in His city, Jerusalem,
to the shouts of joy from the crowd.
He accepted the Father’s will when it meant being betrayed by one
friend, denied by another, and abandoned by most of his other friends. He accepted the Father’s will when he
was led to the cross to die a most horrible death, hanging naked in utter shame
before a crowd who mostly mocked him, next to two criminals.
It
is hard to accept suffering. It is
hard to accept dying to ourselves and our wills. But it is true humility when we know that God the Father is
in charge, and we are not, and when we go where He leads us. It is hard to embrace the cross as the
means of our salvation. But all
Jesus’ life, and this entire week of liturgy, points to Friday, which itself
points to Sunday. Today’s
celebration begins with joy and shouts of “Hosanna,” but quickly changes to the
somber recalling of the passion.
The Last Supper, which we will celebrate on Thursday, is the liturgical
anticipation of the sacrifice of the true Lamb of God on Calvary, and the way
that Jesus institutes among His apostles so that all of his disciples, ordained
and lay alike, can connect to the power of Jesus’ kenosis, his emptying of Himself entirely.
Each
time I celebrate Mass, I kiss the altar.
The cross is the altar where Jesus was sacrificed, and so the altar is
the cross, which I kiss. As I walk
up these steps in the sanctuary, I am walking towards Golgotha, to kiss the
cross on which Jesus is sacrificed.
I bring my own sufferings, my own trials which the Lord has given to
me. I bring your sufferings, your
trials which the Lord has given you, the ones that I am aware of, and the ones
I have not even begun to imagine, but which the Lord has placed on my shoulders
just as He placed the cross on Jesus’ shoulders. And I kiss that altar, that cross, because my offering of
myself, my offering of you, will become the means of my glory and yours, as the
Father takes our pain and suffering and death, and gives back to us new life in
the Eucharist. As I kiss that
altar I kiss the demands on my time, my failures, my weaknesses, my sins. As I kiss that altar I kiss the
economic struggles, the children who are away from the Church, the sick and the
suffering, the troubled marriages, the hurt, the loss of family through death,
and the sins that you bring to Mass and which I carry for you.
But
just as it was only through Jesus’ cross that the resurrection was possible, so
for me it is only through being sacrificed on that altar in the bread and the
wine that I rise to new life, and so for you it is only through being
sacrificed on that altar in the bread and the wine that you rise to new
life. Do not run from the crosses
in your life; embrace them, kiss them!
Because it is through those crosses, born with love, united to Jesus,
that new life is possible. Humbly
accept the path God has chosen for you, even when it leads to Golgotha, even
when it means “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,”
because God will greatly exalt you, and bring you to new life in Jesus Christ
our Lord, “to the glory of God the Father.” Amen.